


Carnivàle

by wendlaa



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Carnival AU, First Time, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Masturbation, Nonbinary Sherlock, Pre-Series, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:12:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3907426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wendlaa/pseuds/wendlaa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock’s time as the fortune-teller with the Two-Hundred and Twenty-One Brother's Traveling Funfair had been largely underwhelming-- that was, until John Watson took refuge from the rain inside his tent. John is drawn to the allure of the carnival and its moody fortune teller, and with only a summer left before deployment, he decides to follow Sherlock on the road.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, I would like to thank Ashleigh @Kinklock, Brit @Drfurter and Nitika @Crylock for being my perfect, amazing betas. All three of them put so much effort into helping me revise and into encouraging me to get this written in the first place. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Secondly, a lot of carnival / funfair terms may be Americanized since this comes from my own personal experiences traveling with a carnival. 
> 
> Have fun, y'all.

1.

Sherlock flicks the ash from the end of his cigarette and draws his thumb across the cracked and dry edge of his bottom lip. The day is dragging on, the moisture in the air growing thicker, more choking. He stands at the edge of the house trailers, watching the rest of the lot slumping along the midway, scurrying to get their stalls, their rides, their food ready before work call is over.  

The fog hangs heavy and low in the humid late afternoon. The sky is a thinning grey, darkening clouds rolling slowly in from the west.  Sherlock watches warily, the smoke from the lit end of the cigarette disappearing up into the mist.

The fairground stretches across the length of an abandoned field behind an old distribution warehouse.  It sits like a large, black stone on the outskirts of the town. It's been quiet for ten years, but its new duty is to mark the week long home of the summertime fair.  A rusted fence surrounds hundreds of metres of the perimeter. This hadn't always been a spot they played, Sherlock muses.  It had only been for the past five years that Sherlock returned to this lot in the last week of May.  The small, sleepy town now signifies the beginning of six months on the road with the Two-Hundred and Twenty-One Brother's Traveling Funfair.  

The midway itself climbs up from the sodden, muddy grass, reaching its colourful flags and swooping rides towards the thick misty sky. It snakes like a tightly wound 'S' with the entrance and ticket booth at one end and the towering fair wheel at the other. The garish orange of the massive wheel could be seen from the middle of town, as much a landmark of summer as the dissonant song of the cicadas.  

Further back, behind the rides and the games and the food joints, is a closely packed group of box trucks and house trailers.  This is where Sherlock stands, surveying his kingdom.  Out of sight are the little mice that run through the wheels to make the clocks tick and the cogs turn.  When the children climb aboard the fair wheel or when the posh boys win a plush toy for the girls on their arms, they do not give a second thought to the people behind the mechanics. They are all but invisible. Just a blur of grease-stained hands and sun burnt cheeks.  

Sherlock exhales and drops his cigarette into the dirt.  He grinds it with the ball of his foot, protected from the ember by callouses earned after years of traipsing barefoot across the fairgrounds. He starts across the open space between the midway and the house trailers, feeling the weight of the day already dragging up and down his spine.  If only he could ensure there were a screening process to keep out the obnoxious dullards who would drag him all the further down. The thought has him mentally pressing his palms together in mock prayer.  

"Sherlock!"

He turns towards the sound of his name just as he slips between two of the ride fences and onto the midway proper. Molly Hooper is picking her way through the bustle of the fair workers to his side. She has two unmarked cups of coffee and her mousy brown hair is pulled back out of her face in an elegantly messy braid. Her small hands are darkened by dirt and grease stains, the kind that never seem to come out even with WD 40.  

"Molly," he says as he takes the coffee cup offered to him.  Her little fingers leave behind dark smudges on the white styrofoam.

"Black, two sugars," she says with a nervous little laugh. Sherlock raises his brows, tipping the edge of his cup towards her lightly. He doesn't say thank you.

"So," Molly squeaks, tucking a loose strand of hair behind the curve of one ear.  "Looks like rain."

"Always looks like rain," Sherlock murmurs around the edge of the cup. He swallows with a pretty twist to his lip. It tastes as if it's been sitting in the pot all morning. The sugar hasn't dissolved properly. He rubs the grit of it between his tongue and the roof of his mouth. "Start of the season. Wouldn't be the life if it didn't look like rain."

Molly laughs and Sherlock finds that he likes her much more when she is unapologetically herself. She smiles and it dimples her cheeks. "Too right," she says, giving him one last jittery, smiling nod before she slips away to inspect the long line of major rides before opening.  Sherlock sucks in a breath and exhales it into the space she had left carved out by the peachy smell of her shampoo.

He starts back across the midway, weaving between the ride gates and the game stalls. No one from the show gives him a second glance.

His tent sits near the northern end of the lot along with the other side-show attractions. The structure of the tent itself is aging and the metal skeleton is brittle, held together with a good amount of gaffer tape.  Where the entrance parts, the thick red fabric splits down the middle into two flaps that are embroidered with a pale woman looking seductive and not at all clairvoyant.  When the curtains are left to settle, her body is split down the middle, making the whole thing a little off center and unnerving.   

A sign just to the left reads "Sherlock the Seer: Have Your Fortune Told" in an elegant script. He's painted over the price of the attraction so many times the show managers have given up on trying to make him charge for the fortune.  

for Sherlock, working the fortune-teller tent wasn’t about the money.  It was one of the only ways he could quell the roaring white noise in his head; static crackled endlessly as his brain fired off from neuron to neuron, speeding ahead of everyone else around him.  He was uncomfortably aware of the stagnant, placid way life seemed to trudge on around him while he waited endlessly for it to catch up. Having some place to sit and wait for people to willingly come to him for the express purpose of hearing him be clever was exactly what the doctor ordered.  He thrived off the rapt attention of others; genius, after all, was always well in need of an audience.

For the show managers, keeping Sherlock occupied in the tent was about ensuring that he stayed out of sight and out of trouble.

The humidity in the air has turned Sherlock's freshly-washed hair wild, making his curls loose and frizzy.  He scrubs his fingers through it, exhaling gruffly. If it were going to rain, he wishes it just would. Nothing annoys him more than the unpredictability of the weather. The only force he could not seem to get to bow to his will–the only fortune he couldn't read.

The work call ticks towards an end. Sherlock retreats into his tent to light several tea light candles on the small round table inside.  

There is no glass ball, no pack of tarot cards, no crystals, no sage. The smell of incense bothers his nose.  There is nothing but his mind and the willing participants who wander into his stall.  

Of course, it wasn't really fortune telling. The locals who came into the tent knew that, but they sat ready to be dazzled anyway.  Sherlock had learned how to use particular turns of phrases, generalised statements that could be applied to anyone, coupled with genuine observations.  Looking too long at another person was like having a conversation that the other person had no part in.  All Sherlock had to do was look: the furrow in their brows, the stains on their sleeves, the animal fur on the hem of their trousers, the colour of the string used to sew back in a missing button.  All of these things and more spoke to him with no effort extended to the second party.  

Sherlock was a constant, unwilling participant in other people's lives even outside of the tent.  The fortune telling allowed Sherlock to channel the endless mess of sound and information in his mind into something more productive than cocaine.  It wasn't always perfect.

There were, unfortunately, the jilted husbands who came swinging for his face when he told them their wives had been sleeping with someone else.  One memorable occasion left Sherlock with a broken nose at the tender age of nineteen, before he'd learnt to get a good read on the potential danger of each client (and before he'd learnt to hold his tongue).  

He liked the children the best.  They were enthralled with his deductions and had no petty secrets to try and hide.  They were, in Sherlock's professional showman opinion, the most pure.

In the distance, Sherlock can hear the startup of the carousel music, followed by the far off roll of thunder.  

If anything, perhaps the rain would wash in someone interesting.

 

2.

John hadn't been to a fair since he was a child. He remembers trying to win a goldfish for Harry; their father got drunk and upended the entire fish tank onto the ground and the whole experience was largely clouded by getting forcibly removed from the fairgrounds.

John isn't keen on reliving this particular childhood experience. But Bill had stood in the doorway of his front porch, pleading and urging. John, who was a head shorter, had not wanted to incite his friend into hoisting him over his shoulder and carrying him off to the fair anyway, so he gave in. They had opted to walk from the center of town to the fairgrounds.  

The cusp of summer is moist, damp with humidity that isn't ready to break. This kind of weather always made John feel on edge and weighted.  There was a kind of inevitability to the dark, rolling storm clouds crawling their way eastward across the sky: you could see the storm coming right for you but powerless to escape it.

The sight of the fair wheel towers over the rest of the low buildings as they near the outskirts where the old chain link fence surrounds the lot. John wishes he could feel even an inkling of excitement. He feels too old at twenty-seven to be spending the afternoon fucking off to a funfair.  Then again, he thinks with a sinking feeling building in his gut, there wouldn't be many more opportunities left for him to fuck off.

The first droplets of rain hit him in the shoulder and John heaves out an annoyed groan. “I told you it was going to rain,” he says, bristling as Bill claps him on the shoulder with a big laugh.

“Are you melting?” Bill needles, pinching John in the ribs; they grapple together, picking and poking and pinching until the small drops become a steady stream. They duck under the overhang of one of the food trailers along with the other guests, panting with laughter.  There’s a group of girls huddling together, giggling. Their hair is wet and their dresses are light and nearly see through from getting caught in the rain. John flushes and his belly swoops with a familiar, animal feeling.

“Aw, look,” Bill says with a dirty grin, pointing past the girls towards a large, lavish tent. It’s a peep-show tent and John has never felt more stupidly male.

Together, they dart back out into the rain, picking through the grass and mud towards the tent.  A heavily muscled man stands stoic in the rain in front of the tent. He’s two heads taller than even Bill and he’s got a burn scar along the left side of his face. John wonders where they pick these folks up and if they deliberately find the meanest looking ones possible.  

Bill shoves a few crumpled notes into the beastly man’s palm and slips past him for the slight opening of the tent. When John tries to follow suit, the security guard places one beefy hand on his chest and pushes back.

“Capacity,” he grunts.

John swears. “Really?” He snaps. The man doesn’t even blink. John huffs and shoves his damp money back into his pockets.  Bill glances over his shoulder before slipping inside and throws John another lascivious grin.  

"Sorry!" Bill says without sounding sorry at all.  He disappears inside the tent, leaving John behind.

John turns on the spot, looking for a dry nook to tuck himself in until Bill gets done inside.

There’s another tent just across the pathway– heavy fabric that’s growing dark and damp with the rain but he imagines is dry enough inside. The little sign on the front advertises fortune telling. Well, fine. That’s fine, too.

John slips inside with a wet-dog shake of his hair. The rain droplets fly across the small space (smaller than John had anticipated) and cause the tea-candles arranged on the little table to flicker.  

When he looks up proper at the person sitting across the space– er, well.. John startles a bit, uncertain who exactly he's looking at.  The man leans forward with his elbows on the table, the loose collar of the sundress he is wearing dipping forward to expose a lack of breasts.  John watches as a messy braid of dark curls falls forward over the rolling, pink slope of his bare shoulders.

John swallows thickly, opening and closing his mouth. A predatory smile unzips from one corner of the stranger’s mouth to the other, showing straight teeth behind thick, pink lips. His arms are thinly muscled, his hands long and slender. There’s old, chipped black nail varnish still visible on the thumbs.  His face is long, a little unnerving in his lack of conventional attractiveness-- nose a little large, eyes a little wide-set. John has a hard time placing what exactly it is about him.

“Er… hello,” John says, clearing his throat. There’s another chair on the opposite side of the small round table. He awkwardly takes a seat, scrubbing one hand through his damp hair.  “You’re–ahm, the fortune teller.”

“Yes.” The voice is deep. John isn’t prepared for the dissonance between the features and the sound and he feels a flush of embarrassment at not quite knowing how to react. He decides on nonchalance. It’s fine. It’s all fine.

“Sherlock, was it?” John forges ahead, remembering the name on the sign. “That a show name?”

Sherlock (maybe) blinks and opens his mouth again with a grin. “Yes,” he says. He offers one slender pale hand, palm up. John isn’t entirely sure what he’s supposed to do. An annoyed expression ticks across Sherlock’s face, his eyes (blue? it’s hard to tell in the candle-light, but they are so very pale) narrowing as the bridge of his brow furrows together in an endearing scrunch.

“Give me your hand,” Sherlock says, enunciating each word as if speaking to someone who is particularly slow. John feels a tightness in his throat as he offers over his hand, palm up.  Sherlock cups his knuckles in the slightly warm, damp cradle of his palm and fingers. There are thick callouses along the underbelly of his hands.

Sherlock drags the tip of one finger down the center of John’s palm. He twists it this way and that, observing each twitch of John’s fingers.  His fingers slip up against John's sleeve, thumb gliding against the bone of John's wrist.  Sherlock's eyes drag along the length of John’s arm all the way back up to his face; John swallows thickly and raises his brows in mock expectation. “Go on, then,” he challenges.

Another strange smile splits Sherlock’s face and he hums.  He lowers John’s hand to the table and covers it with both of his large palms. “You’re a trained doctor. Recently signed up with Her Majesty’s army for a tour of duty. A healer in a war zone, how absolutely, repulsively poetic.”  

John’s blood goes a bit cold and the hair at the back of his neck raises slightly. “Oh, come off it.” He says, drawing his hand away. “Bill’s put you up to this, hasn’t he?”

Sherlock looks affronted, scowling over the flickering low light of the candles.

“You haven’t been living here for some time. Came back to spend your last summer with your family before shoving yourself off to get shot at. Bad choice. Alcoholic father, brother who’s following in his footsteps, emotionally distant mother.” The words come rapid fire from Sherlock's mouth, each one more spitting and spiteful than the last. “Can’t save your pitiful excuse for a family so you’re shipping off to try and save some blown-to-bits soldier. Disgusting display of sentiment. Try not to touch me again, I fear it will _catch_.”

When he's finished, Sherlock sits with his palms flat on the table, scowling prettily with an upward twist of his lip.

John is certain he should feel–something. Anger, maybe. That had been quite a few insults all in a row, there. He licks his lips, lacing his fingers together on the table, adjusting in his seat and straightening his shoulders. In truth, that had been incredible.  John was a skeptic of all things unproven by science. And he most certainly didn’t believe in fortune tellers. Whatever trick Sherlock had just pulled-- well, it was spot on.

“That was brilliant,” John says calmly.  He watches with pleasure as Sherlock’s face grows noticeably pink.

“...Really?” Sherlock asks. All the venom has seeped out of him and his shoulders melt from their defensive upwards coil. John grins.

“Absolutely,” he affirms, nodding his head once.  “Might want to work on your delivery, though.”

Sherlock preens visibly.

“So how did you know all that?” John asks, certain that the game is up now. “I won’t tell anyone, but really.”

“I said I was a fortune teller, didn’t I?” Sherlock says, offering a wide grin. “I meant it.”

John feels that sense of unease start to creep and crawl back up the base of his spine. There was some allure to the whole thing, he admits. Perhaps it was better not to know the secret.  He’s sure Bill must have–what, snuck off, when they were together the whole time? John wants to press further for the real answer but he isn't keen to break the magic just yet.

In the stretching silence, John can hear the rain pattering on the heavy fabric of the tent.  Everything smells damp and a little cold, despite the breaking humidity and heat.  Sherlock’s eyes lower, his lashes like twin black grins against the apples of his cheeks. John’s belly swoops again.

“But it was brilliant,” he ventures to say, his voice light. Sherlock glances up from beneath the pale, heavy lids and the flush of delight in his cheeks gives John another sweeping feeling in his gut.  

“Any chance on tomorrow’s lottery numbers?” John teases.  Sherlock scoffs and wrinkles his nose.

“I read people, not events,” Sherlock says, waving one hand dismissively.

“Not quite fortune-telling, then, is it?” John asks, laughing after Sherlock’s face dissolves into one of discontent.  

“Your friend is looking for you,” Sherlock says just before John hears Bill’s voice from outside giving his name a shout.  John’s brows shoot up and he laughs, grinning across the table.

“You read people, not events?” He pushes himself to his feet.  Sherlock stands as well-- completely upright, he is much taller.  The hem of that sundress hits just above the knee; the sight of his pale legs offset against the colour of the fabric does something to John.  He tries not to stare, but it’s hard-- if only because there’s is something entirely ethereal about Sherlock and the way he carries himself.

John steps back out of the tent and into the wet drizzle. The downpour had tapered off, leaving the air a little chilly now that the humidity broke.  Sherlock follows him out, bare toes squelching the muddied grass.  In the natural light, John realises that Sherlock is quite a bit younger than he had originally thought.  Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two.  He's still got all the soft, smooth features of youth.  Tall, but not grown into his skin, yet.  The dress (yellow, white flowers along the hem, god) softens whatever unsculptured masculinity he's got about him into androgyny.  John has the distinct impression that Life had not finished shaping Sherlock yet, and still had quite a ways to go.

“Oh!” John says, realization and embarrassment dawning on him simultaneously.  “I haven’t paid you.”

But Sherlock scoffs and shakes his head.  The loose braid swishes from side to side.  “I wouldn’t take it even if you had,” he says.  John purses his lips and makes to protest, but Bill has spotted them both from down the midway.  He makes a beeline towards them, waving one arm over his head.

“I guess I’ll see you,” John says, stepping back.  Sherlock smiles in a way that means something, but John can’t for the life of him suss out what it is.  

“Oh--”  Again, John turns just as he was about to start across the grass to meet Bill.  He twists on the ball of his shoe, unable to contain himself from needling Sherlock one last time.  “And I haven’t got a brother.”

Sherlock’s expression falls open in confusion.  It’s quickly schooled into something defensive.  “You have!” he insists, bristling.

John laughs and turns, heading up the midway to meet Bill.  He feels a warmth prickling at the base of his neck and he imagines it’s strange, lanky Sherlock scowling holes into his skin.

He’s absolutely never been one for the carnival.  Fairgrounds make him start to feel old, these days.  But maybe he would come back tomorrow, just to see, after the rain had passed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another huge, enormous wonderful thank you to my three lovely betas: Brit @drfurter, Ashleigh @kinklock and Nitika @crylock for sticking through with me to the end of this chapter! With lots of love and encouragement, chapter two nearly doubled in size. And thank you everyone who read and kudo'd and commented! Your enthusiasm was so amazing!!! Enjoy everyone! ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

1.

The townies step around Sherlock, giving him a wide berth as he stands in the middle of the milk aisle at the local shops. They glance at him out of the corners of their eyes. Sherlock is preoccupied with thoughts of the soldier-doctor, barely noticing as mothers tug their children closer to their hips as they pass.

The whole ordeal has weighed on his mind, though not in an entirely unpleasant way.

John. That was the name the soldier-doctor’s friend had called outside the tent. The name itself isn’t entirely interesting, Sherlock thinks sourly. Biblical in origin, the name John is derived from from the Hebrew name Yochanan: Yahweh is gracious. It is the name of twenty-one popes, eight Byzantine emperors, countless rulers of England, Sweden, Denmark, France, Poland, Russia--

“Excuse me,” a woman says as she inches around Sherlock for the milk fridge, disturbing his train of thought like unsettling the dust floating through sunbeams.

John. Sherlock steps away from the milk and turns on his heel. He weaves through the aisles towards the check out. The thought of John Whoever stings the edges of his mind like a hornet. He felt disquieted and uncomfortable in a way that was new and made his chest ache a little; there is, too, a mild urgency to see John Himmy-Who again.

The dreary weather had moved on from the day before, leaving the late morning just this side of warm enough. A cool breeze made the heat beating down from the sun bearable. It was a good last day. The nice weather would bring in a crowd to make up for the rain. Despite the upcoming jump, Sherlock could not quite start to take his mind off this town to prepare for the next. Within it was John, John the doctor who was preparing to become a soldier, John who most definitely had a sibling, and it certainly had to be a brother. John, whom he had followed out of his tent--and why? Why did he do that? The look of contentment on John’s face, the crinkle of his eyes when he smiled, had dragged Sherlock by the dress-collar like some falling twit in a vaudeville hour.

Ugh. Sherlock was riddled with equal parts intrigue and annoyance at his own circling thoughts. The next day, before John even got out of his morning shower, Sherlock would be gone-- packed up and slipping away at the break of dawn like some phantom. It wasn’t worth thinking on too much longer.

 _And yet_.

And yet here he was, eyes alert and flickering across each face in the shop as he hands over a couple of notes for his paper bag of non-perishables. As if mysterious John were going to appear out of thin air, like one of their side show tricks.

And then he does.

The sight of him is as startling as cool water down the spine. Sherlock fumbles to grab his change and the paper bag of groceries back from the clerk as John, really truly John, grins over at him from across three check out aisles, sunburnt and happy. Sherlock blinks, clutching his paper bag against his chest as he steps slowly out of line and towards the door. John is grabbing two plastic bags (not environmentally conscious) by the hand loops and crossing the store towards him. _Towards_ him, voluntarily.

“Hi. Hey. Hi.” John is out of breath though Sherlock cannot for the life of him fathom why. He’d only been five metres away, but when he smiles his cheeks are pink.

“Hello.” Sherlock is worried he’s coming off too curt, so he says, “How are you?” even though he doesn’t particularly need to. John’s got all the physiological signs of joy. Sherlock glances surreptitiously at the plastic bags: ingredients for veggie stir fry.

“What, can’t you tell?” John asks with a big laugh. The kind of laugh that shakes Sherlock’s skin on his bones. He feels lopsided standing next to John like this. On even ground. They step out of the shop together and the hot air grows sticky against their skin.

Sherlock doesn’t answer, which makes John’s ears turn pink. “Do you want me to walk you back to the lot?” he asks. Sherlock’s brows raise.

He does. “Why would I want that?”

“Or, you know, you don’t-- I mean, we don’t… I just thought--”

Sherlock feels a rush of mortification swallow up the column of his throat and turn his cheeks a blazing, terrible red. “John,” he says, firmly. “I’m quite-- I’m quite _flattered_ , but the jump is tomorrow and--”

“Oh my god,” John says, voice thick with embarrassment. The whole ordeal is dreadfully unbearable and Sherlock wishes the ground would swallow him up. “No,” John says. “ _No_ , I was not asking-- to-- _whatever_ you thought--”

Sherlock clears his throat. “Well, _good_.”

They stand there in a swelling silence that feels like needles in Sherlock’s skin. John is looking at him with one hand clenching rhythmically around the handle of his grocery bags. The expression on John’s face starts to twitch and warp and before long he’s howling with laughter. Big, full belly laughs, the kind of laugh Sherlock doesn’t think he’s ever achieved before. The sound vibrates underneath his skin and burrows there like a tick. It permeates his blood and makes every inch of him warm. He can feel his lips pull and his eyes crinkle in the corners.

“Sorry,” John says, gasping with delight. “ _Sorry_. That was shit. I made tits of that. Sorry.” But he’s smiling so full and good that Sherlock isn’t even sure if he’s sorry at all. And that’s just fine.

“What I meant to say,” John goes on-- and he’s looking at Sherlock, right in the eyes, “- is that I like your dress.”

Sherlock glances down at the dress in question. It’s an unpretty green with white, geometric patterns. “You like my dress,” he repeats slowly, lifting his gaze back to John’s face. John’s cheeks are still flushed and handsome.

“Yes,” John states firmly. Hm.

“You’re uncomfortable with it,” Sherlock says, feeling the warmth dissipating in his chest. He watches John lick his lips and shift his weight. He opens his mouth, as if ready to contest the accusation. He closes it again and lifts his chin.

“Let me walk you back to the lot,” John repeats. “If you want.”

Sherlock means to say no, because the jump is tomorrow and then he’ll be gone from John’s life and John from his. But John looks so pleased as they walk together down the hot asphalt that Sherlock has trouble swallowing, and so he says nothing.

But he does look quite a bit.

The shirt John’s wearing isn’t his. It doesn’t fit him quite as well as the clothes he’d been wearing the day before. It’s a size just too small-- the short sleeves stretch over the bulk of his arms and the hem has no hope of being tucked into his trousers. It suggests that John got dressed that morning without much attention or care. Perhaps he had plucked it out of a communal laundry hamper. It is a man’s shirt-- there’s no extra stretch of fabric over the chest --and of a rather plain style, something John’s own clothes had exhibited yesterday. Sherlock doesn’t imagine John would be wearing his father’s shirt. Who else shared the house with John that he would be comfortable enough swapping clothes with, even if on accident?

John _has a brother_ and yet Sherlock cannot twist the accusation out from behind his lips. He’s fuming, quietly, with the memory of John’s cavalier dismissal of that statement the day before.

The walk is brief. They’re coming up on the lot before Sherlock has had his fill of John’s companionable silence and the pursuit of his enigma.

“I have a twin sister,” John says, unprompted as they start slowing outside the fairground entrance. Sherlock groans, rolling his head back on the joint of his neck. God! Of course he had a twin sister.

“You share clothes?” Sherlock questions, shifting his grocery bag from one arm to the other.

John looks down at his shirt, raising his brows towards his hairline. It has the endearing effect of stretching his face in a comical manner. “Oh, ha… Yeah, she’s, um. She’s a bit of a tomboy. Never liked dresses and all that.” Sherlock has a feeling that John doesn’t really mean ‘tomboy’. He says it like a euphemism.

“This is your last day?” John pushes on, lifting up onto the balls of his feet and rolling back down. Sherlock nods. The twitchy anxiety is all over John’s face, in the clench of his fingers, in the set of his shoulders. He can’t even stand still. John’s body is speaking what John’s mouth refuses to say. “Maybe I’ll stop by, see if my fortune’s changed.” John smiles with half his mouth.

Sherlock puffs out a surprised laugh. Here John stands in front of him, uncomfortable with Sherlock’s dress and forging ahead all the same.

“I’ll clear my schedule,” Sherlock says. John makes him feel like saying things like that.

When John grins at him, it makes Sherlock want to say anything at all.

2.

There has been a feeling in Sherlock’s stomach all afternoon. It’s one that simmers slightly, makes him feel light he’s swallowed up sunlight. Running into John had been unexpected, but… nice. John’s big belly laugh still buzzes under Sherlock’s skin. When he runs his fingers along the back of his arm, he imagines he can feel it like palpable energy.

“What’s got you all twitterpated?” Molly teases when she brings him a coffee at the start of work call. Sherlock narrows his eyes suspiciously as he takes the cup.

“I don’t know what that means,” he says, voice ticking slightly in annoyance. Molly grins at him from around the rim of her cup. Her small palm curls around the soft inside of his elbow. He wants to shake her off, but only because his skin is buzzing. They walk down the midway towards his tent. The breeze makes her loose hair tickle his bare arm.

“You look like you’re worked up, is all,” Molly says. She releases his arm and gives it a friendly pat. Sherlock feels the urge to scowl, so he does.

“Haven’t you got a ride to inspect somewhere? Elsewhere?” He looks pointedly away from her. Molly had once been soft in a way that was annoying to him. When he said things like that, she would become withdrawn and anxious. Now, to both his delight and annoyance, she only laughs at him. She throws her head back and he can’t help but watch the line of her throat from the knot of her jaw downward.

“I’ll send one of the guys over for tear down.” It’s Molly’s version of a peace offering. Sherlock huffs and shrugs, taking a large swallow of the coffee. It’s fresh this time.

Molly gives his arm one last squeeze before she goes.

The afternoon ticks by. Sherlock’s thoughts get caught up with the other locals who stop by for a fortune telling. Some are boring, some are marginally entertaining. It’s never a perfect science. The entertainment value depends too much on the unpredictable variable of other people.

He makes it two hours before he steps out for a cigarette. The carousel music can be heard all the way from the other end of the midway. It’s a backdrop to all the noise and chatter of the fair grounds. He can hear one of the game barkers trying to draw in passersby who still have any cash left. The midway is crowded with families with small children.

Sherlock’s eyes scan each face as it slips by; nameless people who Sherlock is not ever likely to see again. And then, from the crowd, John appears. A smile breaks across John’s face once he spots Sherlock as well. Sherlock’s attention is piqued, his own lips twitching in an effort to reciprocate. Once he’s within earshot, John laughs and says, “Told you I’d stop by.”

He had and here he is. Sherlock is pleased by the way John seems keen to share his company. Aside from Molly, no one else had ever been eager to do so.

“You did,” Sherlock agrees around a plume of smoke. He flicks the ash of the end of his cigarette. “Here for another fortune-telling, then?”

They share an eye-crinkling smile. Sherlock drops the butt of the cigarette to the ground and grinds it out with the ball of his foot. When he turns back to the tent, John is already holding the thick curtain aside. Sherlock raises his brows and John gives him a nod of his head as if to say, ‘Well, go on,’ so Sherlock slinks past him and John follows, letting the curtain fall closed behind him. They’re once again surrounded by the muffled darkness and the long shadows of flickering candlelight. When they sit, Sherlock holds out his hand and he feels a pleased warmth when John readily slips his own into the cradle of Sherlock’s palms.

John’s hands are small in comparison to Sherlock’s own. They’re thick, with calluses on edges of his fingers indicative of medical instruments and ballpoint pens. Sherlock smoothes the pad of his thumb across the hollow of John’s palm, pressing at the muscles and tendons.

“What type of person studies medicine and then goes off to war?” Sherlock asks. It’s entirely rhetorical and when he glances up, he’s pleased to see John doesn’t look like he wants to answer. There’s a pinch to his lips, a slight squint to his eyes. Sherlock wonders if the frankness of his deductions make John uncomfortable. He licks his lips and looks back down to John’s palm. “I imagine you did all sorts of stupid things as a child,” Sherlock carries on. “Climbed things you shouldn’t have, snuck into old buildings with your friends. Got into a fight or two with a child twice your size, perhaps?”

When he looks up again, Sherlock can tell he’s correct. John’s uncomfortable look has smoothed and softened. He looks sheepish now, a grin tugging the corners of his lips. Sherlock quite likes the way John looks at him like he’s been impressed by him.

“Well,” John chuckles. “You’re not wrong.”

Sherlock feels as if his delight is radiating off him in waves. He releases John’s hand slowly and watches as John retracts it to his side of the table. Sherlock laces his own fingers together, leaning his elbows on the table and resting his chin across the back of his hands. John is looking at him in a way that Sherlock isn’t used to. He tries to suss it out, but he can’t quite manage.

“So, you like excitement.” Sherlock concludes.

“Who doesn’t?” John asks, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair. “And you’re certainly one to talk. You’re traveling with a fair. It’s clear from where I’m standing that you’re incredibly bright. You could be doing anything you want. What, law school not the right level of adventure for you?” He’s teasing him, Sherlock realises. John’s expression is warm and pleasant, his shoulders relaxed. He’s ribbing him like they’re old friends.

Sherlock exhales a breathy laugh. “So, you like excitement and you’re not keen on staying here for the whole summer before deployment, no matter how good your intentions.” Sherlock pins John with a stare. He’s pleased to see him squirm. “I give you another week before you head back.”

John scoffs and lifts one hand to rub a the back of his neck. Sherlock watches him, eyes flickering across his face, over his body, watching as every singular muscle twitch speaks the words John isn’t saying. Sherlock tries to imagine John’s time spent with his family: were he and his parents estranged? Did it take a significant toll on John’s emotional energy to interact with a twin sister who had followed in the footsteps of their alcoholic father? John averts his eyes and Sherlock knows it’s guilt.

So John had been considering going back to London. Maybe he had vague plans of doing locum work before his deployment. Sherlock imagines that John would leap at an opportunity that would keep him plenty busy enough to avoid another visit to his old family home.

Oh. Oh.

“You could come with us.” The words are out before Sherlock even fully realises he’s offered.

John blinks across the table at him, lowering his hand back down to his lap. John puffs in disbelief and Sherlock feels blood rush into his cheeks. He twists his fingers together and lowers them to the table.

“What, pack up and run away with a carnival? Isn’t that a bit… Oh, I don’t know. People don’t do that in real life,” John says.

Sherlock cocks his head, trying not to feel a bit insulted. He wants to say, ‘Well, Molly’s done just that’, but he doesn’t. He purses his lips together and wrinkles his nose. “What do people do in real life?” he asks.

John gazes at him in one of those unfamiliar ways again. Sherlock feels as if he has to look away and yet physically can’t.

“I can’t just run away with a traveling fair.” John shakes his head.

“Why not?” Sherlock presses. “You’re not going to stay here anyway.”

John laughs. Sherlock has the distinct feeling that it isn’t unkind. “You can’t know that,” John insists. “I could change my mind any second.”

“I read people, not events,” Sherlock reminds him. That John comes with them seems very important in this moment, in this tent, with the only light between them the flick of the candles. “You’re not going to stay; you’re already going half mad with boredom. You’ve chewed your nails down to the nib.” He reaches across the table and grabs John’s hand, flipping it over for examination. “So why stay? Why not come with us?”

“So that’s it?” John asks. He raises his brows up to his hairline and Sherlock sucks in a deep breath. “We’ve barely met and you want me to come traveling with a carnival?”

Sherlock feels his lips pull upward into a grin. “Yes.” He ducks his chin a bit, looking at John from under the loose curls of his fringe. John’s eyes soften and he licks his lips.

Outside, the chatter and banter of the crowd suddenly twists and gnarls into shouts and screams. The locals running by cause the entrance of the tent to flutter open, admitting a breeze that blows out the candles. Sherlock jerks his head towards the opening where a thin stripe of the outside world shows the scurrying of terrified fair goers. John sits up straight. Sherlock watches as his muscles tense; he’s like a leopard ready to spring. They exchange a look, something that passes between them in the echo of the commotion coming from outside.

John is up first, throwing himself out onto the midway. Sherlock is right behind him, the bright light stinging his eyes for only a moment as he sprints off in the opposite direction the locals; John is at his side without even a moment's hesitation.

The cause of the commotion is coming from the snake charmer’s tent. Molly is trying to calm down those who have stuck around. Sally, with her fly-away curls, looks absolutely thunderous as she scans the grass with both her eyes and her bare feet. Sherlock realises quickly what’s happened and slows to a walk, throwing his arm out in front of John to stop him from getting too close.

“Some fuckhead is going to get a goddamn beating!” Sally hollers. Molly winces as mothers glare daggers over the heads of their children that are being hurried away from the scene.

“What’s happening?” John asks, catching his breath. Sherlock steps closer, carefully as he keeps an eye on the ground.

“Someone must have knocked over one of the cages,” Sherlock answers. When John gives him a look, Sherlock nods towards the cloth sign hanging over the top of Sally’s tent: Sallette the Snake Charmer.

“Jesus.” John says, drawing back a bit as he looks down at the ground.

Sherlock exhales a little breath of relief when Sally bends down to pull a ball python out of the grass and let it loop around her arm.

“Knocked over?” Sally shouts, spinning on the balls of her feet to face them. Sherlock just barely stops himself from flinching in the face of her ire. “Someone unlocked all the bloody fucking cages.”

Sherlock pads around the back of the tent (making sure none of Sally’s snakes are anywhere underfoot) to where the cages are kept under a shaded hutch. Of the seven snakes in Sally’s show, only two of them had been returned to their cages. He crouches down to examine the hutch.

The cages themselves aren't made from anything particularly durable-- just thin wire kinked by pliers and beginning to rust-- but the weakest spots are the latches. They're twisted. It looks as if someone had simply taken a pocket knife and bent the latches to keep them from shutting properly. The two cages housing the recaptured snakes are secured with rubber bands.

Sherlock stands and scans the immediate area. Most of this end of the midway had cleared out after the howling mothers raised the alarm. Anyone of interest seems to have made a break for it.

“Must have been some bleeding heart,” John says as he meets Sherlock around the back of the tent, nodding towards the cages. “You know, one of those animal welfare types.”

Sherlock exhales, giving the area around them one last look. “Must be,” he agrees. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone has been upset over the snakes.

Now that they know the screams of terror hadn’t been due to someone’s limb getting ripped off on a ride, Sherlock starts to feel his heart settle. He exchanges a look with John that’s mildly amused. John’s eyes crinkle in the corners like a secret.

Sherlock says turns away so he can scour the ground. He starts walking in a wide circle around the tent. John follows Sherlock’s lead, lagging about a metre behind. They can hear Sally cursing around the other side of the tent and Molly trying to calm her down. His attention diverts and his eyes lift for just a moment-- his foot slides against something cool and squirming. In the next instant, a sharp pain shoots through the top of his foot. When he looks down, the spooked python that had bit him is recoiling.

Sherlock swears as he leaps back on one foot, the pain stinging. “Sally!” He shouts. “I’ve found one!” Sherlock crouches towards the ground, bitten foot aloft, as Sally comes stomping their way.

“That’s what you get for not being careful!” She scolds. Sherlock fights hard not to roll his eyes at her.

John is at his side, one palm on his elbow; his hand is warm. Sherlock swallows thickly. “Let me see,” John says, and his voice is soft and low. Sherlock eases back onto his haunches and lets John handle his foot and ankle. The actual puncture wounds are barely visible through the outpouring of blood smeared along the top of his foot. John is touching him, touching his blood, getting it sticky over his palms and fingers. It feels unbearably intimate.

“Have you got a kit?” John asks, looking over Sherlock’s shoulder at Sally. Sherlock can hear her behind him, trying to get the python’s cage to close. His pulse beats painfully in his wound; he rolls his head on the joint of his neck and he leans back on his arms, trying to shift his focus away from the pain.

A few minutes later, Sally is dropping a sparse first-aid kit down beside them. John doesn’t hesitate to start picking it apart, rifling through to find what he needs with. His demeanor pours confidence into every movement. Sherlock watches as John cleans away the blood with an alcohol wipe. It stings against the open punctures and Sherlock clenches his fists into the grass and tightens his jaw. John’s hands are steady as they work to examine the bite and clean away the blood. Sherlock watches the concentration on his face, the way he narrows in on what he’s doing. Even the sound of Sally’s stream of cursing doesn’t draw John’s attention away from his task. Focusing on John’s exceptional competence manages to take his mind off the pain, just a bit.

“It doesn’t look deep,” John says finally, looking up. “Bled worse than it really was. But you’ll have to keep it bandaged up and clean while it heals. That means shoes.” John is teasing him again. The realisation sits warm in the hollow between Sherlock’s rib cage. John reaches for the roll of bandages out of the open kit. Sherlock feels the muscles in his face tic toward a wince as John carefully begins to wrap the bandages around the top and arch of his foot.

John looks up at him and their eyes meet. Sherlock feels the blood rush to his face. He averts his eyes sourly. “Thank you.”

“Get a lot of injuries on the job, then?” John asks in that same note of teasing. He releases Sherlock’s foot and sits back on his heels. Sherlock scoffs.

“Oh, yes,” Sherlock says, looking at John again; they share a look that feels like old friends. “Loads. Breaking fingers tearing down rides, torn muscles from heavy lifting, gruesome snake wounds.”

John’s face scrunches when he laughs. “Lion maulings?”

Sherlock is caught off guard by the burst of laughter that comes out. “We don’t have lions,” he says as John stands. He reaches down with an open palm and Sherlock takes it, heaving himself to his feet. He favors the bandaged foot. “We don’t have a doctor, either,” he points out.

When they’re both upright, John is looking at him and Sherlock is looking back. John, who says things to Sherlock like: ‘I like your dress’, and who likes things that aren’t ordinary at all. John, who is unassuming and small and he looks at Sherlock as if he isn’t at all frightened or annoyed. Sherlock closes the back of his throat and holds his breath for a few beats.

Finally, John shakes his head. “God,” he says, rubbing his palms over his face and up into his hair. “You’re fucking barmy.”

Sherlock feels a burst of warmth crawl up his throat as he exhales. John is pursing his lips together, trying to chase off the beginnings of a grin. “So, is that a ‘yes’?” Sherlock asks, cocking his head to one side. “You’ll come with us?” (He almost says _with me_ and just barely manages to avoid the mortification.)

“God, help me,” John says. His expression opens and he allows the grin to fully form. “But, yes.”

  
3.

Martha Hudson is a harried looking women in her fifties, graying blond hair falling out of it’s ponytail. She is standing at the top of the collapsible metal stairs outside of a long trailer with a ticket window in front. Through a smaller window in the side, she’s speaking with someone out of view. There’s a clipboard in the nook of one elbow. When she glances their way, John gets the distinct impression that she’s already had her fill of Sherlock before he’s even opened his mouth.

“Sherlock, love, we don’t need any more tear down help.” She’s halfway to turning back to the little window before she does a double-take. “Sherlock!” She sounds exasperated. “What have you done to your foot?”

“This is John,” Sherlock says loudly, ignoring the question. “He wants to travel, Mrs. Hudson.”

Mrs. Hudson sighs, her brows pulling together in concern. She gives Sherlock a look of discontent before turning her attention on John; he stands a bit straighter, squaring his shoulders. When she shakes her head, he finds himself deflating a bit.

“I’ve got no room in the bunkhouses to put him,” she says after giving him a once over. To her credit, she at least sounds a little sorry.

John sighs, feeling a bit foolish. Of course, normal people didn’t just do things like this. No one really ran away with a carnival. John has a feeling that Sherlock’s touch of madness is contagious. The allure of leaving this small town behind was hindering his ability to think straight. But Sherlock is clasping the railing of the stairs and saying, “He can stay with me!”

Mrs. Hudson gives Sherlock a sour look. “In that little thing? Have you even asked him? You’re doing all the talking.” She looks back to John. “Your name, dear-- John, was it?”

John straightens up again and nods. “Er, yes m’am.”

She wrinkles her nose and waves one hand. “Oh, goodness, that won’t do. Mrs. Hudson, dearie, everyone else does.”

John relaxes and offers a softened smile. “Right, sorry.”

Mrs. Hudson starts down the steps, coming to stand between him and Sherlock. They’re about the same height. John lifts his chin and tries to make himself seem taller. She reaches to squeeze the meat of his arm in her thin fingers. “Can you lift twenty kilos?”

“He’s a doctor,” Sherlock interjects.

John clears his throat and nods. Mrs. Hudson hums thoughtfully, stepping back. When John glances at Sherlock, he seems like he’s trying to hide a gleeful look beneath the dark curls of his fringe.

“Alright,” she finally says, slapping one palm against his chest. “Fine. We could use someone around here with a bit of sense. Show up here at eight A.M. sharp tomorrow morning. From then on, consider every person on this midway your boss. You’re going to do what anyone tells you. The pay’s not good and the hours are long. You’re going to set up, tear down, carry and wash whatever someone tells you to do. Got it? You’re going to get £130 per week and you’re not going to complain about it. Understand?”

John is a little taken aback by the speech. Mrs. Hudson is looking at him firmly, tapping her fingers impatiently against the clipboard. “He understands,” Sherlock says loudly, nudging John in the side.

“I understand,” John repeats. He isn’t entirely sure what he’s getting himself into.

Mrs. Hudson’s severe expression melts away into a doting smile. She reaches out to pat his cheek. “Lovely,” she says. “We’ll get you all officially signed up tomorrow after the jump. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” She pauses only to pull Sherlock down and smack a motherly kiss on his cheek, then strolls off down the midway. John is left feeling a little like he’s just gone through a tornado.

He looks sidelong at Sherlock; he looks so… soft. That is the only word John can find to describe the way his face falls exposed in a dizzying display of openness. He watches as Sherlock then schools it into something that he, perhaps, deems more appropriate.

“You’ve got packing to do,” Sherlock says, swallowing down the softness. John feels as if he’s seen something he shouldn’t have.

John exhales and nods, shifting back a step so he can look at Sherlock without rolling his head back. There’s a moment of quiet that passes between them; something lingers in the silence and John wonders if it’s just him, or if Sherlock feels it to. And then Sherlock is smiling at him in a way that seems so pleased that John can’t help but smile back. He feels an incredulous laugh start to bubble up from his chest.

John doesn’t think just now about the social fallout from his family for ditching them during his last summer before deployment. He doesn’t think about the phone calls he’ll get from Harry in her drunken anger or the disappointment in his mother’s voice. It’s something he’ll deal with later, probably just with a note left on the kitchen table. For now, Sherlock has followed suit in his ridiculous laughter.  When Sherlock laughs the apples of his cheeks rise and his pink lips pull dimples from his cheeks.  For now, there’s excitement and a bit of danger waiting for him just down the road.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy cow!!! another chapter, another amazing huge thanks to the ladies who i owe this entire story to-- this weeks beta's being ashleigh @kinklock and brit @drfurter. the amount of love and fan art this story is getting already keeps me living. you're all more beautiful and amazing that you even realize!!! thank you, i love you, and enjoy!

 

1.

The jump is on a Sunday. The show opens on Monday evening. John is able to suss out on his own that that means there’s a lot to do between now and then.

John hasn’t seen Sherlock since early that morning after they arrived at the new lot. He had disappeared into the office trailer, Mrs. Hudson had put John to work helping get everything on location, and that was that. It’s harder than John had anticipated. He has never given much thought to how the fairgrounds sprung up in each new town. Logically, he knows that someone has to be behind the setup and tear-down, it has just never occurred to him how much work was actually behind the childhood magic of a carnival.

John soon finds himself helping direct huge trailers with wide blind spots onto their locations. The ‘ride jocks’, Mrs. Hudson calls them, work to get the rides perfectly on mark. If the ground isn’t level, someone has to back the wheels up onto stacks of flat wooden blocks. The ride structures have wheels mounted on a metal base that allows for the rest of it to be dismantled and folded up for travel, then unfolded and set up again in another spot. The game trailers are much the same: mounted inside a box truck for road travel with one side that folds open and up into and awning to hang prizes from.

And then, of course, there are the sideshows-- Sherlock’s tent, the peep show, Sally’s snake tent, a sword swallower that John isn’t particularly keen on meeting… The skeletons of their tents poke up from the ground. Sherlock is nowhere to be seen, so the other side show workers set his station up as well.

It takes nearly five hours in the hot sun to get everything in their allotted space. The midway is stationed in an emptied car park in town. With limited space, everything has to be set up just right and not an inch out of line. Mrs. Hudson organizes and lays out the midway, building from the inside out in four long lines. Once something is in place, the workers can begin to effectively assemble the rides and games, working well under Mrs. Hudson’s direction. Watching them feels like listening to a foreign language; there is no hesitancy in their movements, and John feels a little lost trying to follow them.

Mrs. Hudson introduces him to Molly Hooper: a wisp of a girl with light brown hair and grease stains on her thin fingers, whose job is to make sure all of the rides get set up, inspected, fixed, and otherwise looked after. Her grip is light and soft when she shakes his hand. She can’t be any older than Sherlock-- twenty three at the most. Her explanations of the work are concise and she smiles welcomingly the entire time she speaks. Even though she’s quiet, John finds her entirely likable and competent.

“You just do whatever Miss Molly tells you, dearie,” Mrs. Hudson says, patting John on the cheek. It’s already past noon and everyone is a bit tired, a bit sweaty, a bit hungry, but Molly puts him straight to work assembling the carousel alongside three other workers. The carousel is one of the few rides that isn’t mounted on wheels; the entire thing is dismantled and loaded into the back of a box truck. John gets put in an assembly line unloading the pieces, passing colourful horses and long metal poles one by one down to the site.

Time seems to pass at both a crawling pace and more quickly that John is used to. The heat of the sun as it shifts in the sky clings to him; he can feel his skin prickling with sweat. The front of his tee-shirt is soaked through from both the heat and the physical labor. His muscles burn, but pleasantly-- the work makes him feel strong and useful.

When all the parts are out, John pauses to looks around the midway from his vantage point in the back of the truck. Rides and joints and games are coming together in varying degrees of assemblage. The skeletons of the rides rise up from the hot asphalt. Thick, black power cords run down the midway towards the generators at the far end. It’s a surreal sight. It makes him breathless with awe, as if he’s witnessing something secret. He wonders if this feeling in his chest is how Sherlock feels all the time, living here.

“So… You’re a friend of Sherlock’s?” Molly asks him when she checks up on him, bringing with her an orange water cooler and a sleeve of styrofoam cups on a rusted hand truck. “That’s nice. Sherlock doesn’t have many friends.”

John isn’t entirely surprised by this information. Molly is refreshingly frank and straightforward about it. He smiles around a gulp of water. “We’ve only just met,” he says, but doesn’t correct her entirely. “He certainly is different.”

Molly laughs pleasantly. “That’s a word for it, yeah.”

“Hey, Molls-- Oh!”

Molly peers over her shoulder at the sound of her name. John lifts his chin a bit, watching as Sally, the snake charmer, comes striding towards them. Her mass of dark curls are pulled back off her face with an elastic and sweat pools in the hollow of her throat, making her oaky skin glimmer in the sunlight. She plants her hands firmly on her hips as she comes to stand with them. Her gaze is fixed on John. He remembers the strength of her anger and can’t help the delightful swooping feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I remember you.” Sally flashes a grin. Her incisors seem just this side of too sharp. John likes the look of her and smiles back.

“Yeah, you too,” he says. He grabs one of the styrofoam cups out of the sleeve and bends to open the spigot on the cooler. When he hands it to her, Sally takes it as if she’d been expecting him to get it for her all along.

“So, you jumped the show, huh?” Sally is looking at him, but her free hand is tucking a loose strand of hair behind Molly’s ear. The motion is practiced and familiar. Watching it even feels intimate, in a way. Molly smiles with all the light of the sun.

“How could I resist?” He asks, unable to contain the smile that burst forward.

John had arrived at the lot at eight that morning to a different sight entirely. Overnight, the midway had been deconstructed. The grass where the rides and food trailers and games had stood was damp and flattened, leaving ghostly imprints of the fairgrounds. Sherlock had met him just outside the cluster of house trailers, with his doctor-ordered shoes (a pair of thick, ugly boots) and led him through the maze towards what he had grandly introduced as ‘[The Sunnybrook](http://40.media.tumblr.com/1ceb38a3467ef2547fad95667ad0adc8/tumblr_inline_no7que3rJt1t9o50k_500.jpg)’.

The Sunnybrook was, it turns out, a small white travel trailer. Sherlock had opened up the trailer with a key and held the screen door out of the way for John to step inside. John understood the moment Sherlock stepped aside why Mrs. Hudson had been uncertain about the capacity of ‘that little thing’.

The trailer was about eight metres long and two and a half metres wide. On his immediate left there was a small [kitchen](http://40.media.tumblr.com/3cfd8ba7553bb6a2c62bbddfd0f2e187/tumblr_inline_no7qtxhJAL1t9o50k_500.jpg) area with two bench seats on either side of a small [table](http://41.media.tumblr.com/9675d15a473eb0f6e09af6b27079d19a/tumblr_inline_no7qt8Hful1t9o50k_500.jpg). Well, he assumed it had once been a table, since something must be holding up the books, papers, and cardboard boxes full of more books and papers. The small sink afforded little room for dishes, yet was piled high with them. There was a mini-fridge, a counter, a little nook for a television. The [couch](http://41.media.tumblr.com/1c4121f168de0cba1cb1046b102e054f/tumblr_inline_no7qtfHa0i1t9o50k_500.jpg) was covered with clothes or, more specifically, dresses. If Sherlock had other clothes, John didn’t see them. There was a small [bathroom](http://40.media.tumblr.com/622157bde8ac88e638feb41837a2b445/tumblr_inline_no7qtoVXMF1t9o50k_500.jpg) acting as a hallway between the front of the trailer and the back. Through the door, John could see a [bedroom](http://41.media.tumblr.com/0e72232af25c8b50afcd6a05b3cd1b97/tumblr_inline_no7qu7rZNb1t9o50k_500.jpg) taken up almost entirely by a queen sized bed.

The trailer was small, almost stiflingly hot, and incredibly messy. Taped up on the walls were newspaper clippings; on closer inspection John could see that they were stories about crimes and murders. It was a little unnerving.

“It’s.. uh, it’s nice,” John had said and Sherlock’s face flushed red. John had felt a twist of pain in his chest at the sight. It wasn’t an endearing rush of color, but something thick with shame. “I really mean it,” he had insisted, tossing his duffle bag onto the bench of one of the kitchen seats. “We can clean it up.”

Sherlock made some vague attempt at tidying up, gathering an armful of dresses of varying fabrics and designs and throwing them into the back bedroom. John wasn’t sure how to react to Sherlock’s obvious fretting; he wanted to assure him that everything was fine. But, the atmosphere in the trailer was thick and a little uncomfortable. It stifled whatever words John managed to pull to the front of his mind. So, Sherlock is different. John knew that. He’d come into this knowing that. It was why he had come in the first place, a little.

Sherlock is different. And that’s fine.

There hadn’t been much time to admire the trailer. Soon, everything was getting hitched up to trucks and pulled out of the lot. Sherlock had overcome his momentary mortification and slipped right back into what John suspected was neutral territory for him: a little bossy, but concise. That worked just as well for John, who followed Sherlock’s instructions on how to pack up the house trailer and attach it to the hitch of an old white Suburban dirtied with dust and mud.

It had been such a surreal experience watching Sherlock in the driver’s side of the truck, the early morning sun catching on the reddish tint of his curls, pulled back into their customary braid. His hair was slightly damp, creating a dark spot on the collar of his dress (blue today, with white lace fringe around the throat, sleeves and hem, cinched high on his waist). The bridge of his nose had begun to wrinkle in concentration. When his eyes flickered to catch John staring, the color began to climb up Sherlock’s throat and into his cheeks. John inhaled deeply and looked away, though couldn’t bring himself to feel chastised.

They sat in silence most of the drive; every once in a while, Sherlock would point out something about the other cars on the road, obscure facts about the drivers that John was certain he was making up.

“The car in front of us is stolen.” Sherlock said, pointing with his wrist resting against the top of the wheel. John felt an incredulous laugh bubble up and out; to his relief, Sherlock didn’t take offense. There was a pause where Sherlock glanced in John’s direction, his brow hitched high on his forehead. Then, he said, “You can tell from the bumper.”

“You can’t tell anything from someone’s bumper,” John said, egging Sherlock on.

But when Sherlock spoke, it was with the same conviction with which he told his fortunes, and John couldn’t help but laugh. “You can’t,” he retorted, tossing John pretty scowl. All earlier traces Sherlock’s anxiety over the state of the trailer was gone, leaving only the easy delight of their bantz.

“Oh, go on. Humor me.” John liked the state Sherlock was getting himself into: his cheeks were flushing and he looked keyed up, excited to prove himself clever.

“There’s adhesive residue left from when the thief removed two-- no, three bumper stickers.” Sherlock said pointedly. John felt a lurch in his stomach as Sherlock pressed on the gas. The Suburban made a suspicious groan that was echoed by the trailer behind them, but Sherlock looked unconcerned, his attention fixed on the bumper in front of them.

“It could be their parents’ old car,” John said, smugly. Just as he’d hoped, his skepticism spurred Sherlock on.

“The tag was replaced, and with a shoddy fake at that.” Sherlock’s hand came down dramatically on the turn signal. “And they’re driving well below the speed limit. They don’t want to be pulled over in a stolen vehicle.”

“How do you know the tags are fake?” John craned his neck to try and get a glimpse at the driver as they speed by.

“The local memory tag starts with a Q, which is never used as registration office identifier.” Sherlock’s voice sounded smug.

John would have never considered that. The fact that this seemed to be common knowledge to Sherlock was a bit astounding. What else was hidden away in Sherlock’s funny little brain? And how did he recall such a seemingly useless fact about license plates? Or, more importantly to John, why? Regardless, it had been astounding.

He laughed and Sherlock jolted, a momentary shadow crossing his face before he sent furtive glances across the car. John felt his own flashing heat of anger at whoever had previously caused such a look.

“Amazing,” John said, allowing the genuine awe to color his voice. Sherlock’s ears had turned red at the tips and the look of self-doubt melted into a preening glow-- one that was quickly becoming familiar. He was pleased to see it, vowing to bring that look to Sherlock’s face as often as he could.

John’s answering smile was an echo of the one he gives Sally now. She peers at him as if she knows something he doesn’t. “Oh, I don’t know,” she says, her voice all falsetto, a little sing-songy. “Sherlock didn’t even make it slightly unappealing?”

John’s look hardens. He makes sure to keep his smile light and friendly. Sally grins, but John is on edge. What was she insinuating? While he’s still turning it over in his head, Sally has moved on to something else, her attention drawn back to Molly. Even if Sally is only having a laugh, the whole of the encounter leaves a sour taste.

Even when he’s gotten back to work, John can’t help surreptitiously glancing for any sight of Sherlock. The wonder and awe he had felt at the beginning of his labor had lost its particular shine, the allure of the carnival dulled significantly without Sherlock.

With one last sweeping glance across the burgeoning fairground, he crumples his water cup and climbs over the unassembled pieces of the carousel, settling back into the rhythm of work. If anything, perhaps it would take his mind of his unsettling conversation with Sally. And maybe even how muted the world felt without Sherlock and his sky blue dress.

 

2.

“Mrs. Hudson tells me you’ve picked up a stray,” Mycroft comments the moment Sherlock slips into the office trailer. The sound of his brother’s voice, though annoying in almost all situations, was something like comfort just now, in it’s own way. The trailer has already been hooked up to the generator and the air conditioner is running, leaving the small space chilly in comparison to the hot air outside.

Mycroft is in the back of the trailer where the slide-outs make room for a desk and one long couch. Mycroft twists on the spokes of his chair to look up at Sherlock as he walks in. Sherlock moves straight for the couch, throwing himself down in a dramatic flourish. The material is cream colored leather that sticks to the damp spaces behind his knees and back of his neck. Mycroft is peering at him from across the small space and Sherlock feels as if he’s being dissected. He scowls and twists his head away.

“He’s a doctor,” Sherlock says flippantly. “And we could use one of those around here with the amount of trouble everyone manages to get into.”

“You especially,” Mycroft says, heaving a sigh as if the mere thought was too heavy for him. Sherlock scoffs, rolling his eyes so thoroughly that his head rolls with them.

“Shouldn’t you be out there, anyway?” Mycroft goes on, turning back to his desk and papers. Sherlock considers ignoring him and the tedious charade they go through every jump wherein Mycroft pretends to care about his lack of work. His eyes rove across the shelves built into the walls of the trailer. The worn Operation box is still in there from years and years ago. Sherlock remembers sitting on this very couch with Mycroft when they were both still children, picking it apart. They were isolated, back then. They still are, in some ways.

“Or are you too tempted to moon over the green help? Is that why you’re here? Avoiding him for as long as possible?” Mycroft looks over his shoulder, his expression one of disdain. He asks like it’s a question, but they both know he’s only attempting to soften his factual observations. Sherlock grimaces, pulling his legs up beneath him on the couch.

“His name is John,” Sherlock says and feels the heat flood to this face; the reaction only strengthens the conviction of Mycroft’s observation. Sherlock pushes himself to stand and clomps in his oversized boots to the shelf. He pulls down the old Operation game and throws himself back down, beginning to open the box on the middle cushion of the couch.

“Ah, yes,” Mycroft says with an audible sneer in his tone. “His name is John.”

Sherlock settles up on his knees on one side of the couch. “Come play this with me,” he says, loudly. He is pointedly ignoring his brother’s egging on. Mycroft makes a noisy show of sighing out through his nostrils, shuffling his papers.

“I’ve got work to do,” Mycroft says, even as he stands and comes to perch on the opposite end of the couch.

Sherlock distributes the faded pieces by muscle memory. They haven’t been touched in years, the picture of the cartoon man nearly scratched all the way off. It’s a relic of their childhood, kept on the shelves as a reminder of when there had only been each other, the both of them thrust into a life that was lonely and foreign to outsiders. They would spend the late afternoons and evenings tucked away into the back of the office or holed up in their house trailer. By the time Sherlock was forming sentences, Mycroft was already a man in a seven year old’s body.

Back then, they had thought Sherlock was the slow one. They both had very little experience with others their age. The locals didn’t want their children coming into contact with the carnie’s lot. Sherlock has distinct and painful memories of staying in towns where a little park and playground stood just down the road from the midway. Mycroft would walk him there on warm summer mornings, when Sherlock was still young and naive enough to attempt to engage with the townie children.

Perhaps there was just a way about them that marked them as carnival kids. It didn’t matter how well or poorly Sherlock attempted to blend in with the townie children, they always knew. In his youth, Sherlock had been incapable of understanding just what it was that singled them out. He’d practiced one careful lie after another to make it seem as if he were a local. It didn’t occur to him until well into his jaded, teenage years that small towns were full of familiar faces, and his wasn’t one of them.

At any rate, most of Sherlock’s memories of childhood are tainted by the taunting of other children.

Even at twenty-three, Sherlock still feels, in the quiet moments that he allows his mind to wander, the remnants of shame. It had taken him longer than Mycroft had to remake himself, again and again, until he had fit into his own skin. Eventually, they had both stopped reaching out to anyone at all.

Even one another.

“You would rather be out there,” Mycroft says as he plucks out the funny bone. He touches the sides but the buzzer doesn’t go. Sherlock doesn’t point it out. “Though even I’m not clairvoyant, so you’ll have to tell me: what is it about this John that’s got you dragging him along behind you?” He looks up then, pinning Sherlock with a look that seeps with some disgusting familial sentiment. Sherlock wrinkles his nose and takes the plastic Operation tweezers in hand. He bows over the game and moves to pluck out the broken heart.

The game buzzes weakly.

Mycroft tsks. “Oh, dear.”

 

3.

“Having an affair with another woman.”

“She’s with her husband and kids.”

“Mm. Still having an affair with another woman.”

John gives a big belly laugh and it fills Sherlock up like cool water in the hot sun. They sit together in the late afternoon, the setting sun casting long shadows and creating bowling shafts of light between the rides and stalls. Though the show doesn’t open until the following evening, some of the games have been set up to make some extra money from passersby. Sherlock continues picking apart the lives of the stragglers for John’s entertainment, John argues, and they both laugh. Sherlock is drowning in a feeling of contentment; his cheeks hurt from trying to stifle smiles. He’s almost suspicious with how at ease he feels next to John, their shoulders lightly brushing. It is as if he simply cannot maintain any feeling other than tentative joy when John is looking at him this way-- looking at him as if he is the most clever person John has ever known (he is). When the breeze shifts, Sherlock can smell the sunshine and sweat on him.

They’ve sat themselves on the metal floor of the carousel, enjoying the breeze that cools the prickles of sweat left over on their skin. Sherlock had ducked into the Sunnybrook and brought out sandwiches and lemonade. The look of delight on John’s face had been thrilling enough by itself.

Most of the other workers have retreated to their trailers or bunkhouses, desperate for AC and a beer. They aren’t alone, though. Aside from the jointies pulling in locals who are hovering around the lot, there is a small group who had volunteered to stay into the early evening and wash the rides. He can hear Molly’s trilling laughter over the sound of Sally’s voice, shouting in a way that seems playful.

John doesn’t look; in fact, he’s looking at Sherlock instead, watching him with creases in the corners of his eyes. “Go on,” John says. His voice is quiet, like a secret. Sherlock rubs his thighs together. “Do another.”

As far as Sherlock can parse out, John doesn’t seem to really believe he’s pulling fortunes out of thin air. Of course not-- John is clever. Clever in the way doctors are clever. But John’s expressive face opens like the pages of a well-worn book, spelling out how enamoured he is by Sherlock’s intelligence. It gives Sherlock all the more opportunities to show off how clever _he_ is. And John just lets him, laughing and encouraging. Even when Sherlock says something rude and outlandish, John only plays at being affronted.

Sherlock lifts his chin, peering out across the midway for anyone else of vague interest. He doesn’t get a chance, however. Sally and Molly are making their way towards where he and John are seated, and Sebastian Wilkes isn’t far behind, laughing at whatever Sally is saying. They’re all carrying buckets of soap and sponge mops. Sherlock feels uneasy in his stomach, his expression closing off as they draw closer. He can feel John pick up on his reaction; John stiffens and sits up a bit straighter, shoulders squaring as if readying to hold his ground.

“About time you showed up somewhere,” Sally says to Sherlock, in feigned irritation. A smile is tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Hello, John,” Molly says sweetly, setting down the bucket of soapy water. “Not too tired, I hope?”

John is grinning in Sherlock’s peripheral. “It’s not too different from the army training,” he jokes, while lifting one arm and flexing his bicep. It has the intended effect of throwing Molly into a fit of laughter.

Sherlock feels his skin crawl when Sebastian finally speaks up, having hovered back long enough.

“Got yourself a pet, eh, Sherlock?” Sebastian steps closer, swinging his soap bucket, sloshing the water nosily. He turns to address John. “He’s fuckin’ useless, this one. Always weasels out of doing any real labor. Hope you’re a better worker than him.” Sebastian pauses to laugh, unkind and grating to Sherlock’s ears. “Oh, we all hate him.” He sets his water bucket down with purposeful force, sending soapy water onto the hem of Sherlock’s dress.

Sherlock jerks his knees away and swallows around a thickness in his throat. He doesn’t expect John’s movement when he stands; neither does Sebastian, by the dumb look on his face. “Careful,” John says. His voice is a caricature of polite calm.

“Just a bit of water,” Sebastian says, lifting both of his hands, palms out. Sherlock recognizes the sticky feeling of embarrassment start to crawl up out of his stomach. “No harm done, right, Sherlock?” Sebastian’s grin is devoid of all good humor. Molly shifts her weight, fingers clenching rhythmically around the handle of her bucket. Her eyes flicker between Sebastian and John.

Sherlock’s cheeks flood with heat and words of retaliation are coming out before he can manage to stop them: “You’re certainly not one to pass judgement on how much work I’m doing, considering you were busy all afternoon chasing after some lot lizard.” To his immense glee, Sebastian goes purple in the face, sputtering stupidly around a denial of the accusation.

Sally barks out a surprised laugh. “Oh, _Seb_!”

“He’s making shit up,” Sebastian snaps. “He wasn’t even on the lot, how would he know?”

“You can’t hide anything from Sherlock,” Molly pipes up, all rosy smiles. Sherlock had always thought that Molly’s syrupy-sweet demeanor often made her capacity for damage greater. He doesn’t bother to hide his smirk.

Sherlock can feel the palpable energy John gives off start to recede. Now that the attention had shifted away from Sherlock and onto Sebastian, Sherlock watched with a warm feeling in the pit of his stomach as John’s shoulders relaxed and his fingers uncurled from white-knuckled fists. The reaction was interesting. What had spurred John to leap, almost literally, to his defense? Certainly he wasn’t under any illusion that Sherlock was _well liked_ amongst the workers here? Sherlock could count on one hand the number of workers on the show who could even so much as stand to be in the same room with him.

The idea that John found him genuinely likable, enough that he was offended on his behalf, sends a burgeoning warmth spreading across every part of Sherlock’s skin.

“Alright, you slag,” Sally says cheerfully, slapping a sponge mop into Sebastian’s hands. “Get back to it.”

John reaches his hand down to Sherlock, palm up. Though he doesn’t need the help, Sherlock slides their hands together anyway. John’s grip is steady and firm; his muscles flex again as he helps pull Sherlock to his feet. The sight is momentarily more distracting than it ought to be.

As they get out of the way, heading back towards the house trailers, John pauses to place his hand on Sherlock’s upper arm. “Sherlock,” he says, his expression crinkling a bit in concentration. Sherlock stops, looking down. A feeling of trepidation creeps up through his fingertips.

“Yes?” Sherlock asks, one hand moving to twist the end of his braid around his fingertips.

John scrunches up his nose and lets out a little puffing laugh. “What the hell is a lot lizard?”

It is not often Sherlock is genuinely caught off guard by another person. The way John’s lips are already spreading wide in a toothy grin brings a matching smile to Sherlock’s face. When John laughs, Sherlock laughs.

John’s palm stays, warm and steady, on the skin just beneath Sherlock’s sleeve for another heart-beat. Sherlock feels it there, even after it’s gone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW! firstly, sorry for the wait on this one. i work 40 hour weeks and write in my spare time, which hasn't been much. and also, this chapter contains plot, which is like, hard or something. so many thanks for my perfect and wonderful betas and friends, ashleigh @kinklock and brit @drfurter. 
> 
> ok, enjoy!

1.

John is banned immediately from touching anything that's strewn about the trailer. Sherlock insists that there's some organisation to the loose sheets of paper and roughed up old books. When John examines the piles of nonsense on the table, he can't make sense of what any of it is supposed to mean or say. What John assumes is Sherlock's handwriting is nothing but chicken scratch.

"Well, we've got to at least have a proper place to eat," John says, trying to make some sort of space on the table top by piling the papers together. He goes about touching it all, despite Sherlock's endless whinging.

"Oh, don't touch it!" Sherlock cries, which John thinks is a bit over dramatic.

"What is all this, anyway?" John asks. "Does this say 'the rate of decomposition..?' Oh, wonderful, I've run away with a serial killer, haven't I?"

Sherlock snatches the paper away, scowling. He throws himself down into the bench seat and begins shifting the piles into something that looks even less organised to John.

"If you're going to be cruel about it…" Sherlock mutters.

"I'm not being cruel," John says, moving to sit across the table. He doesn't touch any more of the papers, though. He lets Sherlock work in fuming, sulking silence for a short while before asking, "But really, what is this?"

"Haven't you ever had a hobby?" Sherlock asks, peering up from underneath the messy curls of his fringe. In the light coming in through the window beside the table, his eyes look viridian. John looks down at the table, trying to make sense of the notes, newspaper clippings and pages torn from books.

"This isn't exactly rugby, is it?" John asks. "Look, this one is about ligature marks."

Sherlock rolls his eyes like a tetchy teenager; he pins John with a scrunched up look, the colour flooding to his cheeks. "The only people more interesting than dead ones are the people who kill them.”

"So you're not a serial killer, just incredibly interested in them?" John grins. "That's a bit sick."

To John’s immense delight, Sherlock grins back. "Perhaps a bit darker than rugby, but I was never good at sports."

"No?" John laughs. He can only imagine-- did Sherlock wear dresses as a child as well? Did he dirty the hem while examining a dead rat in the garden while other children his age bumped and scraped their knees playing football and tag? While his peers were playing in the mud, did Sherlock hunch over with a book about body decomposition? The thought is jarring and almost laughable, but John believes it.

“So what did you do? Not sports.” John tries not to sound overly interested, or like he’s trying to pry. John gets the impression that Sherlock is incredibly private-- or at least, he’s not used to the company, despite the close quarters of everyone he lives and works with.

Sherlock doesn’t seem to hear him at first; he has his chin tucked against his throat, his messy curls falling over his face to hide whatever expression he has. All that mess of hair swinging forward like a veil-- John considers investing in a pack of bobby pins.

“I read, mostly,” Sherlock finally answers, looking up. John reads his expression as falsely cavalier. “We were home schooled.”

“We?”

“My brother and I,” Sherlock expands, resting his arms on the table top, paying no mind to the papers. John groans around a laugh.

“God, there’s two of you?” He punctuates the jab with a grin and Sherlock mirrors it. The sight of Sherlock’s tightly drawn face during Wilkes’ taunting is nowhere to be found, now. And thank God, thank everything. He feels his fist ache with rage just at the memory, and he clenches his fingers together in his lap. When he shifts his legs, his foot knocks against Sherlock’s beneath the table.

Sherlock grins likes he's keeping a secret.

The smile falters as he looks down before falling away entirely. "As I’m sure you can imagine, the two of us never quite fit in.” Sherlock’s hands hover for a moment over the mess of papers, as if he’s not quite sure what to fiddle with. “And if you think I’m insufferable you ought to meet my brother.”

The attempt at self-deprecating humor falls flat and unfunny. “I think I’ll pass on that for now, thanks,” John says, to clear the air. “One of you is enough for me.”

“I’m the pretty one, anyway,” Sherlock says and the atmosphere settles back to comfort.

John snorts out a laugh. “Well, I won’t argue with that.” When their gazes meet, Sherlock’s lips twist into a half-smile that means something-- John isn’t sure what.

  
2.

Living in the house trailer is a lot like camping, only without the peace of the wilderness. The walls of the trailer are rather thin. He can hear the commotion of the other workers in the adjacent bunk houses. It had taken John a few days to get used to the sound of screen doors bouncing against their frames and the loud, drunken laughter of the ride jocks after closing time.

Mrs Hudson hadn't lied about the amount of work and shite pay-- at least when it came to set up. The rest of the week while the show was open everyone worked from work call at four in the afternoon to closing time at ten in the evening. John had been shuffled from spot to spot the last three days: carrying bags of sugar from one of the stock trucks to the cotton candy trailer, heaving children up onto the carousel horses, pulling a hand truck loaded with a water cooler for the ride jocks. He even helped Sally feed her snakes.

However, his spare hours were filled with only one thing: Sherlock.

John is used to sharing close quarters with another bloke. He’s had his share of small flats with too many roommates and not enough rooms. But nothing compares to the infinitely smaller and messier space of the trailer. Maybe it’s just that Sherlock takes up all the space in the room, even if he’s sitting quietly at the table with a book. Even at night John can hear, through two closed doors, the soft sounds Sherlock makes in his sleep. When Sherlock shifts about in the bed at the back, the trailer wiggles on its wheels.

John can hear the whole thing creak and groan when he rolls onto his side. The soft grey light filters weakly through the half shut blinds; the early morning has brought with it the sounds of the day. If he closes his eyes and lays perfectly still he can hear the sound of Sherlock’s breath whistling through his mouth as he sleeps. Outside, the birds are stirring. Their chatter will soon wash out whatever comfort John seems to find in Sherlock’s sleepy noises.

His whole body still aches with exhaustion. He imagines he could fall right back asleep if he gave it a shot. It couldn’t be much later than six in the morning. Sherlock, the lazy thing, was never out of bed before ten. John rolls onto his back and stretches, feeling the trailer groan in protest around him.

Even though it isn’t time to wake up proper, his body has ideas of its own.

John swallows thickly. He slips his hand beneath the blankets, pushing against his slowly hardening prick. He sucks in a deep breath. A quick wank and then right back to sleep. The thought is toe-curlingly delightful. He pushes the edge of his pants down and wraps his fingers around his hardening cock. In the back of his mind, he can hear the slow, soft sounds of Sherlock’s breathing.

John huffs and pauses, opening his eyes. The ceiling stares back. Sherlock is not what he wants to be thinking about just now. The way Sherlock expresses himself-- with his hair, his dresses. Getting off to that feels wrong, fetishistic even. Instead, John focuses on literally anyone else. Sally, an old boyfriend from secondary school, his last one night stand with a woman in a bar. His prick feels warm and heavy in his hand.

He thinks of soft breasts and wet lips. John squeezes, moving his hand slowly. It’s nearly unbearable. His toes curl against the blankets, hips arching into his grip. His breath comes in soft pants, his free hand curling into a fist around a handful of blankets. The edge of the sheet rubs deliciously against the head of his cock. John feels his throat constricting around a moan.

The trailer wiggles slightly and John pauses, holding his breath. When there's no other movement, John spreads his legs and plants his feet flat against the couch-bed. He quickens his hand, the thrill of finishing before getting caught spurring him on.

His thoughts are suddenly, a little unwillingly, back to Sherlock. His teeth clench together and his eyes squeeze shut. He doesn't want to think about the flush of Sherlock’s cheeks, or the way the light hits Sherlock's braid and makes the hair a dark, earthy red. He doesn't want to, but he does. And he thinks about the sound Sherlock might make if John tugged on that braid, just a bit, enough to expose the line of Sherlock's throat. With no point of reference, John's brain supplies the moans of an old girlfriend-- high, soft, breathy. A sound that Sherlock's own vocals would never be able to achieve. It doesn't matter. It does the trick.

He comes wet and messy into his fist at the thought of Sherlock's dress sliding up the length of his thighs.

John groans quietly, rubbing his clean palm against his face. That was awful. That was terrible. That was brilliant. His jaw aches a bit and he feels his spent prick give a pleased twitch.

John eases himself out of bed and walks carefully to the small bathroom. He creaks the door open-- the door opposite, leading into the back bedroom, is firmly shut. Thank God. He washes his hands quickly, patting them dry on his shirt. The quick wank did very little to relax him, but he feels spent enough to crawl back into bed, anyway.

As he settles back down onto the fold out bed, John feels his stomach tightening into a knot that's not altogether unpleasant. He drifts back to sleep to the sounds of Sherlock snuffling in his.

  
3.

Sherlock turns the wrist of the client across the table to catch the time on his wrist watch just before he stands to leave. 9:50 P.M. He exhales slowly, forcing a pretty smile. The man digs out a few notes for Sherlock’s trouble and tosses them on the table. “Ta,” Sherlock says, taking the crumbled notes and tucking them into a sewn pocket in the hip of his dress. An old banker with a cheating spouse and a heart condition-- boring, boring, woefully boring. The man stomps sulkily from the tent.

The lights off the midway seep in through the break in the curtain; before the last customer has gone, another is shifting their way into the opening, blocking the light. Sherlock is almost ready to tell whoever it is to get lost. But when he looks up he feels a pleasant rush of surprise-- it's John sneaking his way into his tent.

“Free?” John asks with a boyish grin lit up from the bottom by the candles. Sherlock rests his chin in the palm of one hand.

“Shouldn’t you be lifting something?” Sherlock drawls, delighted when John only rolls his eyes and plops down on the opposite chair. “Well, now that you’re part of the show I definitely have to charge you.”

John laughs in a way that constricts all the blood vessels in Sherlock’s brain and turns him momentarily stupid. Even in the low light, Sherlock can see John has worked up a sweat. His tee-shirt is damp around the collar, despite the sun having long gone down. It’s pleasing to sit with John like this, again, in this place. The world hurries on around them, the momentary silence pierced by the sounds of the midway: the carousel music, children laughing, the buzzer of a game going off. But inside the tent everything is still and intimate.

“There’s an all-night diner just up the road,” John says, bringing Sherlock sharply into focus. "If you want to get dinner."

Sherlock wrinkles his nose, leaning back in his chair. "We're not the most welcome group among locals," Sherlock points out. John is still green, still fresh, still unfazed by the dirty looks the townies give them in the diners and way stations. But John only flashes that handsome, boyish grin. It turns Sherlock's stomach into butterflies that flutter against each other in his abdomen.

"We'll get a big enough group and they won't want to kick us out. Money is money." John slaps the table lightly, as if that's that. Sherlock groans. John's idea of fun-- gathering all the people that can't stand him around a table for burgers and chips.

"Why would I go to dinner with them?" Sherlock asks, narrowing his eyes across the table.

"That's what people do," John says, good naturedly and patient. It vaguely makes Sherlock skin crawl. "Go out for a bite with friends."

"None of those people are my friends," Sherlock reminds him.

John scoffs. "Oh, come off it. Molly adores you. Brings you coffee every day. And we're friends, aren't we?"

Sherlock feels his cheeks turning pink for no reason other than that a higher power must wish to smite him. He shifts a bit, eyes fluttering away. The assertion is pleasant and builds in Sherlock's chest like warm honey tea. He wants to bask in it for ages, but the curtain rustles and a local pokes in. A short man, maybe John’s height, with salt and pepper hair and pale skin and big, dark eyes. Sherlock exhales and sits up straighter as John jumps up from the chair to make room.

"Oh--" The man's voice is thin and squeaky. He inches further in, fingers twisting together. Nervous. Generalized anxiety disorder. The sleeves of his button down are folded up twice, but not far enough to expose his elbows. His brow is sweaty but the collar of his shirt is dry. Sherlock hums.

"Is-- are you-- busy?" The man squeaks out.

"Not at all," Sherlock says, gesturing to the chair. "Don't mind him. New security."

John scoffs from somewhere behind him.

The man fidgets, twisting his fingers together. He exhales in a rush as he sits, shifting from side to side as if he cannot quite dispel the energy that had piloted him here. Sherlock leans forward, placing his hands palm up on the table. He tries to offer what he hopes is a charming smile. The man is radiating nervous energy-- which is annoying, as it rattles all his other details. It’s like Sherlock is trying to see through a rain-slick window.

The man offers his hand and Sherlock flips it over, examining his palm and fingers with one quick sweep of his eyes. He follows the line of the man’s arm to his torso with his eyes. The man is dressed in a sweat stained tee-shirt. When he came in, Sherlock could see the heavy steel-toed boots. They made his otherwise flighty and twitchy walk heavy and awkward. From the callouses on his palm, Sherlock can tell he's some kind of laborer. His muscles bunch under the skin of his arms. More specifically, the man must be in some kind of construction, maybe warehouse work but that seems less likely.

There looks to be dirt under the man’s short cut fingernails, though in the dim light it's hard to tell exactly. Sherlock detests guessing and approximations. No wedding ring, but his finger is slightly compressed from wedging it off and the skin is pale where it’s left a tan line.

"Erm.." The man's hand jumps and twitches under his fingers. "Is.. is there more to this than just..?"

Sherlock sucks in a breath and is assaulted with the sudden sharp stench of bleach from the local. It nearly stings his eyes. The buzzing of the man's anxiety plays over his expression with every jumpy twitch to his eyes as they rove nervously in their sockets. Sherlock knows he has to say something. He can feel John’s eyes on the back of his neck.

“Rocky marriage?” Sherlock asks finally. It has the result of causing the man to sit up straighter, his whole body pulled taut like a violin string.

The man swallows noisily, tongue darting over his teeth. “It's fine," he snaps, shifting back and forth in his seat. "We're perfectly fine. Everything is-- is fine."  
  
Sherlock only just resists the heavy eye roll. "And you've just come from work," he says-- but that's not quite right. "Or rather, you came from your work site.."

Sherlock watches the man's expression carefully, noting the way it contorts at the deduction. Clearly, this man wasn't expecting to stumble on a real fortune teller. At least, Sherlock is as close as they come. He lets his eyes rove over the man once more-- perhaps something really clever might fluster him enough for Sherlock to really peel back what it is about him that’s so interesting.

“That’s-- that’s clever,” the man says, his voice tight. “That’s very clever. That’s a clever trick.”

“A lot of dirt in your line of work? Construction, I meant.” Sherlock says, pointedly. “You work with your hands.”

The man clears his throat. He shakes his head. “No,” he squeks. “No, I-- I’m .. I don’t. Work with dirt.”

Sherlock’s does roll his eyes this time, reaching across the table for the man’s hands. He flips them over and pulls his fingers closer to the light of the candle. “Garden for fun, then?” He says, bowing over the man’s hands. The dirt under his nails, in the light, is russet.

_Oh._

“Sherlock.” John’s voice is full of reproach, and the man jerks his hands back to himself. John doesn’t know, couldn’t possibly, but Sherlock wishes he could shout at him to shut up, for just a moment. Meanwhile, the man’s face is growing redder and redder.

“Sorry,” Sherlock says without sounding sorry at all. When he stands, so does the man, propelled by his anxiety. “Terribly sorry, but we are closing soon, the fairgrounds I mean.”

He holds the curtains of the tent back for the man to slip out, taking up so much space in the entrance that the man has no choice but to squeeze around him to get out. With a well placed foot, the local goes tripping over Sherlock and himself onto the ground.

He can hear John say, “ _Oh, for god’s sake!_ ” somewhere in the tent behind him.

“Gracious!” Sherlock says, loudly, falsely. He leans down to help the man up, making a wild show of dusting him off. “ _So_ sorry!”

The man is so flustered now that he’s practically vibrating with energy. “I’m-- I’m-- I’m fine, really."

Sherlock tucks his hands behind him against the small of his back and gives his most charming grin. "Have a nice night, then.”

The man takes his opening to leave with haste. The moment he is down the midway and out of sight, Sherlock tosses the wallet he lifted into the air, catching it again in his opposite hand. He opens it, glancing at the ID card. Trevor Bates.

John steps out, scowling. "Sherlock, what on Earth was that?"

Sherlock waves around the wallet. "I needed to get this."

Johns face drops and he looks between Sherlock and the wallet in his hands. "You pick-pocketed him?"

Sherlock flashes John a sly grin, snapping closed the wallet. “Forget dinner. That man just murdered his wife.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ANOTHER LONG WAIT FOR ANOTHER CHAPTER! thanks for the kudos and comments and all the lovely carnivale asks i get in my inbox on tumblr as well!!! and thanks to my motivators and friends ashleigh kinklock and brit drfurter who wreck each chapter as it's being written. and thanks to them for being so creative and helpful when it comes to deduction consulting. 
> 
> so, here it is! thanks and enjoy!!

1.  
  
"Are you high?" John demands, feeling a rush of anger deep in his chest. He stands with the passenger door of the suburban open, refusing to get in. Sherlock is at the wheel, glowering at him. The faint glow of the dashboard lights illuminate his face from below.

The question isn't unwarranted, John thinks. Sherlock is agitated with some kind of burning energy. His eyes are bright and dewy. John has seen enough druggies in his lifetime-- Sherlock doesn't look unlike the worn and wrung out kids he's seen come through the A&E. He’s jittery and manic and his fingers are gripping the steering wheel so tensely his knuckles are turning white.

"If I say yes will you get in the bloody car?" Sherlock snaps, his hands gripping the wheel and giving it a little aggravated shake. John grits his teeth.

"Absolutely fucking not," John says firmly. "Actually, that is the least likely scenario in which I would get in this car."

Sherlock makes a sound so exaggerated that John is, quite frankly, surprised he doesn't throw his back out. John watches as Sherlock tosses his hands up then slams them back down on the steering wheel.

"I am not high," Sherlock says slowly, a pause for emphasis between each word.

"You're telling me that that man killed his wife and you just-- knew?" John asks. The longer he stalls getting in the car the more manic Sherlock seems to become. John figures he has another three minutes to suss out the situation before Sherlock gives up and simply drives off without him.

“I didn’t know--” He twists his fists around the steering wheel in agitation. “The boots, the localised sweat, the stench of bleach, it was all-- listen, I know now, so would you just get-- in-- the-- car!” Sherlock reaches for the keys and twists them in the ignition. The suburban roars to life. John has sorely overestimated Sherlock's ability to exercise patience.

John curses under his breath and climbs into the car. If Sherlock is right, John can't just let him drive off to chase a killer on his own. He barely has the door closed before Sherlock is pulling too quickly out of the lot.

"What exactly is your plan?" John asks, twisting in his seat. "We're running off after someone you think-- insanely, might I add-- murdered his wife."

Sherlock casts him a sidelong glance, the irritation fading from his face now that he's gotten his way. John feels momentarily duped, but he can't find it in him to care. Sherlock's eyes are burning with something not unlike excitement. Maybe he really is high-- just not on drugs.

"Oh, come off it," Sherlock says, now with a grin that raises the apples of his cheeks. "You're loving this."

John scoffs, scrubbing one hand through his hair. Well, he isn't altogether hating it. He gives Sherlock a dirty look, anyway. "Come on," he says finally. "This is mad, even for you. I think you're too caught up in all those murder stories."

Sherlock smirks, taking a sharp turn. John would ask where Sherlock thinks he's going, but at this point he doesn't think it's going to make a difference. The darkened town flies by outside the windows. It's one of those quaint country places where each house is detached and flanked by trees. The lights from the windows wink by them as they pass.

"I'm a fortune teller," Sherlock says finally. "It says so right on the sign. I was right about you, wasn't I? I'm right about this, too."

John groans, rubbing one hand over his face. "But you're not really," John insists. "You know you're not."

"Don't you trust me?"

The question catches John off guard. His life feels all the more surreal-- Sherlock looks as if he belongs on a different astral plane. He's looking at him, peering out of the corners of his eyes and from beneath the wild curls of his fringe. The beam of the headlights bouncing back at them illuminate Sherlock's skin until he doesn't look real.

John does, he realises. He does trust Sherlock. He trusted him that very first day and trusted him when he left his family behind with nothing but a note on the kitchen table. He even, for a while, trusted that Sherlock really was a seer. John swallows, pursing his lips. "You're really, very sure?" John asks, leaning towards the middle console. "Hm? You're very sure about this?"

Sherlock grips the steering wheel tightly. They've reached a more densely populated area, but the shop windows are mostly dark. When he finally speaks, the manic urgency from before has dropped away. "Yes," he says. John has a feeling that this is the verbal version of a cold shoulder.

The correct and rational decision would be to find a phone and call the police-- John exhales, realising now that Sherlock is actually making the most sane decision under the circumstances. Who is going to listen to some carnie fortune teller? One of Sherlock's hands leaves the wheel to pull and tug at his braid and John wonders if the differences Sherlock has carried with him doesn't have something to do with the avoidance of authority figures.

John sighs and nods. "Fine," he says. "I'm with you. One hundred percent. What's the plan?"

Sherlocks eyes flicker between John and the road, as if assessing how much of that hundred percent John is really willing to give. All of it, John thinks, and wishes Sherlock's fortune telling trick would kick in. Finally, he nods and John feels a tension in his chest start to loosen.

"Trevor Bates," Sherlock says. He reaches to his lap where the wallet is cradled and tosses it towards John. He catches it and peels it open, looking down at the ID in the clear pocket. "You smelled him, didn't you? He looked like he'd just come from a construction yard but he smelled like bleach. There was blood under his nails."

John clenches his jaw. "You couldn't have just said so?" he snaps, glaring up at Sherlock-- who doesn't at all seemed bothered by his irritation.

"He'd taken off his wedding ring-- that's guilt, he feels badly about what he did. And you saw him, twitchy little mouse of a man." Sherlock scoffs. "He didn't kill her on purpose, but he certainly killed her."

"You're having fun," John says, not at all surprised.

"And this is the most fun you've had in years," Sherlock says. He pulls the car over onto the curb and cuts the ignition. The quiet of the residential street echoes around them. A cicada screeches in the distance. He turns fully to look at John now, leaning one elbow against the steering wheel. "Oh, alright, it isn't decent fun, but it is, isn't it? Fun?" Sherlock raises his brows, teeth biting at his bottom lip.

John is suddenly reminded, by that coy little poking of teeth against Sherlock's lip, of the unbidden thoughts that had gripped him during his wank. Even the flush of Sherlock's cheeks, barely visible in the dim light, is remnant of the frankly questionable breach of boundaries John had committed. He takes a deep breath to chase away those thoughts.

"Yeah," John finally concedes, sighing. Sherlock isn't wrong. Sherlock is rarely wrong, John is starting to realise.

Sherlock grins brightly. "Excellent," he says. "Because now we've got to break into Bates' home."

"Solving crime by committing more crime," John says, feigning thoughtfulness. "I like it."

"His crime is worse. It cancels out our crime." Sherlock opens the door of the suburban and slips out. John smirks and, left with no other choice (really), follows suit.

Bates’ home is a squat one storey with an overgrown yard and uncut hedges. The numbering on the front of the house had perhaps once been white against the dark siding, but now John can barely make it out from all the years of dirt and rain. He’s surprised, though he shouldn’t be, that Sherlock had found their way here without even so much as glancing at a map. After witnessing first-hand Sherlock's storehouse of seemingly useless knowledge, the notion of him memorising the streets of every town he's visited isn’t too far beyond belief.

He still asks, “How the hell did you find this place?” for the gratification of hearing Sherlock explain, so that maybe a well placed brilliant! in response would flush Sherlock’s cheeks. But Sherlock only hushes him as they slink along the side of the building. All the lights are off, giving the house a sense of still foreboding. It occurs to John that this could all just be a set up-- a fun prank for Sherlock to pull. Maybe it’s even hazing for the green help. That thought is banished by the mere fact that all of this is too elaborate, too drawn out, for it to be anything other than real. Mad, but real.

“We have twenty minutes at most,” Sherlock says. He shoots a look over his shoulder (the severity of it dampened by the fact that John can hardly make it out). “We would have had more if you had just gotten into the car when I asked.”

The wooden fence surrounding the garden comes up just below Sherlock’s jaw. There’s no lock, just a metal latch screwed into the wood. Sherlock slips through the gate, the hinges attached the wood squealing into the night air with the effort of moving through a coating of rust. John pauses, one hand gripping the edge of the wood. Then, with the deepening conviction that he could do nothing else even if he wanted, he follows after Sherlock.

The back garden is even more unkempt than the front; the weeds brush against John’s knees as he wades through them. Without the light from the street lamps, Sherlock seems to disappear in and out of focus, the pale skin of his arms and legs glowing faintly in the darkness. Never in his life would John have predicted this is where he would be: chasing after a suspected murderer with a surly fortune teller.

The sliding glass door leading into the house doesn’t budge when Sherlock jerks on the handle. John presses his cupped hands against the glass and peers into the back kitchen. He can see the faint bulky shape of the kitchen table closest to the door but nothing further back; all the lights are off, and the house lays still just beyond.

"Oh!" Sherlock says. In the darkness, he's much closer than John had anticipated. He can feel his warm energy, the brush of Sherlock's arm against his. "I was going to break a window, but this is much easier."

"What?" John pulls back from the glass. Sherlock has fallen to his knees beside the door and for a moment, it looks as though his arm has disappeared into the wall of the house. When Sherlock pulls his arm back out John can hear the creak and clatter of plastic settling back into place: a dog door.

John can't stop the bubble of laughter. "No," he says in disbelief. "You're kidding me."

Sherlock chuckles and John watches as he drops to the ground, hands sliding along the opening, gauging its size. "Quick and clean."

"You won't fit," John says around the shivers of his laughter. "And I won't be yanking you back out when you get stuck."

But Sherlock is already squirming to wedge his head and shoulders through the opening.

_Oh, for God's sake!_

John looks away from the vague shape of Sherlock's body squirming on the ground, half thrust through the opening of the dog door. He swallows thickly, crossing his arms.

"Must be a good sized dog, though," comes Sherlock's half-muffled commentary.

John, against all better judgement, glances down to see Sherlock's pale legs wiggling out of the opening. His dress has rucked up against his thighs. It's a very long few moments as Sherlock manages to wiggle himself all the way through-- Christ.

The latch on the door clicks and Sherlock slides it open. "See? And now Mr. Bates won’t have to pay for a new window."

"Dog door but no dog?" John asks, stepping through. He shuts the door behind him, feeling a prickling at the back of his neck. Sherlock slides his palms along the wall until he finds a light switch, flicking it on. The bulb in the kitchen light is dim and flickers.

From somewhere beyond the light of the kitchen comes the sound of clicking paws on hard wood. John barely has time to brace himself for a vicious Rottweiler before a mutty cattle dog comes trotting around the corner, wagging it’s tail at the sight of them.

Sherlock glances at John with a barely contained smirk. "Poor excuse for a guard dog."

John can't share in Sherlock's amusement. This whole thing had seemed a bit like a mad game Sherlock had orchestrated, up until the moment the friendly dog came wagging up to them. The dim light in the kitchen illuminates enough for John to see that the dog's tan fur is darkened with red around its paws and muzzle.

"Sherlock," John says, his throat feeling tight around his name. Sherlock's expression falls blank, his shoulders tightening. He steps around the kitchen table, his shoulder pressing against John's. His body feels like it's burning.

Sherlock breathes out softly. "Oh."

John's jaw tightens. This is suddenly very real. "Come on," he says quietly, stepping past the dog. Its whole body swings back and forth with how hard it's wagging its tail. The kitchen doorway leads into a darkened hallway. John palms the cracked wallpaper and finds the light switch; his eyes squint slightly as the hall light flickers on. To the left is a small, darkened living room. To the right the hallway extends, two doors on either side leading to different rooms.

Sherlock slips by him. "We've only got a bit of time."

John follows and they advance down the hall, the dog trotting alongside, tail ever-wagging. Sherlock pauses outside one of the closed doors, pressing the toe of his boot against a discoloured stain on the carpet. John watches, feeling a burning start to build at the base of his spine. It's not an unfamiliar feeling, nor an unpleasant one, but he feels guilty in reveling in it all the same.

Sherlock raises his brows and grips the door handle. John nods firmly.

Inside the bathroom the porcelain and white tiled floors have faded into a dingy water-stained yellow. Blood smears the inside of the tub, even pools sticky and congealed in the drain. A closed container of bleach sits on the toilet and blood soaked rags clog the sink. The floors are washed by carmine bubbling with bleach, pushed across the floor by the mop that lies against the tub.

The dog squeezes by them and laps at the blood on the floor with a wagging tail.

"He's not thinking clearly," Sherlock says quietly. "He stopped in the middle of cleaning the mess because he had to move the body. Panic must have made him detour to the fairgrounds for an alibi. Then we spooked him. He's moving the body again."

John drags his palm down his face, exhaling sharply through his nose. "So now what?" And then, because he can't stand the sight of it, John carefully crosses the threshold and grabs the dog by the collar and tugs it out of the room. It doesn’t need to be licking up congealing blood and bleach.

"We're messing with a crime scene, by the way," John points out mildly. "We need to contact the police."

Sherlock is quiet, as if overtaken by something unseen. Slowly, he draws in a breath and tears his eyes away from the blood. "Call the police," he says absently. "But he's already gone. We'll have to go after him."

"Sorry?" John pulls the bathroom door shut to keep the dog from consuming the crime scene.

Sherlock shakes himself free of his thoughts with a physical toss of his head. Then, he's grinning down at John with all the same bright and vibrant enthusiasm. "He's already moved the body twice. The police will be too slow."

"You're not a fortune teller," John says, feeling a tick of annoyance. Sherlock has the impression that they both follow the same line of thought, when often John is left trodding behind trying to even see the dots that Sherlock has already connected.

But Sherlock only grins all the wider, as if he's getting away with something particularly clever. "Come on," he says, eager and flighty. "The game has only just begun."

 

  
2.

They make quick work of searching the rest of the house. John doesn’t call the police; he figures that if they’ve already gone as far as breaking and entering, they might as well keep going down the path of vigilante justice. In the bedroom, the carpet is damp and dark in a concentrated area just beside the bed. Some blood was smeared on the white bed skirt. John has to hold the dog by the collar so it doesn't go wagging right back into the blood.

The smell of it is vile. It stings the insides of John's nose even after they return to the kitchen.

Sherlock rifles through stacks of papers on the kitchen table, coming away with check stubs issued from Janus Construction Co.

"There's construction on tenement housing just on the edge of town," Sherlock says. "I saw it on our way in this week. In a town this size, there's a monopoly on the construction business. And by the look of these checks, that's where Bates is working. Plenty of places to concrete a body into, if you're clever."

"Is he clever?" John feels the time moving almost palpably against his skin. "You said we spooked him, that he's moving the body."

"Then we’d better hurry." Sherlock crosses the kitchen to turn out the light switch. The dim bulb blinks out and the darkness seems thicker than before. John hears the dog whine from somewhere behind him, nails clicking on the linoleum as it paces.

Sherlock's hand finds the crook of John's elbow in the dark. John, startled into action, covers it with his own. Sherlock's fingers are warm, the skin over his knuckles soft in contrast to the callouses on his palms. They hover like that for only a single moment, from one clock tick to the next, and then Sherlock is sliding by him, his fingertips brushing down the length of Johns forearm as he retreats toward the sliding glass door.

The air has turned sticky and humid outside. John can smell the rain carried on the stifling breeze. Every sound that they make, creeping through the weeds, seems impossibly loud. John feels his blood pumping through each individual vein.

They're walking away from a crime scene. They're walking away from blood and the sharp, metallic stink of death and bleach. John clenches his fingers into fists at his sides, hyper aware of each sound. Before, John had been able to disassociate himself from the reality of the trail they were really chasing.

But someone is dead, now.

And yet John would not rather be anywhere else.

In the suburban, Sherlock is quiet, but his energy isn't at all muted. He pulls the suburban back out into the quiet streets, the roar of the engine the only thing echoing between the houses and trees. John watches Sherlock's fingers twitch in quick rhythm against the steering wheel.

"I don't know things," Sherlock says, breaking the silence. John takes a moment to follow the non-sequitur. "I see them. I follow a train of logic to reach a viable conclusion."

"It isn't fortune telling." John purses his lips slightly. Watching Sherlock had been thrilling all the same; the leaps in logic are enough like fortune telling that it’s hard to spot the difference. "I already knew that."

"I was more interesting to you when you thought I was a seer.” Sherlock’s tone is tetchy. He shifts his weight in his seat, agitated.

"Trust me, that is the least compelling thing about you." John says drily.

“Then what’s the most?” Sherlock shoots him stung glances from under the curls of his fringe. John just barely manages not to roll his eyes, but the urge comes from fondness.

“Your complete willingness to go after a man who has just murdered his wife.” John is pleased as he watches a smile start to twitch over Sherlock’s lips, almost completely dispelling the insecurity that had settled onto his face. “You play at being a misanthrope but this is rather charming, isn’t it?”

“I think even misanthropes have empathy for murder victims,” Sherlock says. He’s trying to sound flippant, but the little pleased smile is giving him away. This is what’s most charming about him, John thinks-- that flush of pleasure every time he receives affirmation of how clever he is.

“Don’t pretend any ordinary person would go this far.” With Sherlock, the idea of what they’re doing doesn’t seem so crazy.

“I have never once claimed normalcy.” Sherlock punctuates the statement with a jerk of the wheel, turning so quickly that John’s stomach gets left behind. The headlights illuminate only a few meters in front of them, but even so it’s enough contrast to make out the black, industrial shapes at the end of the road. The construction yard of the tenement buildings stand out against the vague light pollution and the silvery glow of the moon.

John’s stomach lurches as Sherlock cuts the headlights of the suburban and slows the vehicle to a crawl. The road suddenly becomes indistinguishable from the ditches on either side. The gravel groans behind the beneath of the car.

Without prompting, Sherlock brings the suburban to a stop and twists the keys in the ignition. Everything is eerie and still around them. “Lets go,” he says. “Grab the torch from the glove box.”

John opens the compartment under the dash. He squints uselessly, hand pawing over loose papers until his fingers wrap around the metal handle of an emergency torch. The feel of cool metal against his palm sends a spark down the length of his spine. Sherlock has already slipped out of the drivers side as silently as possible, but John can hear the crunch of the gravel beneath his boots.

The entire area is silent beyond the chittering whir of the cicadas and grasshoppers.

John can hear his pulse thrumming as the light of the torch sweeps a weak, narrow beam in front of them. A high mound of dirt marks the gradual downward slope of an enormous hole that had been dug out for the building's basement foundation. Sherlock's theory had proved right.

Sherlock stands at the edge, John's stomach lurching weakly at the sight.

"Hand me the torch." Sherlock's voice seems impossibly loud. John steps forward, guiding the torch into Sherlock's hand.

The atmosphere has shifted like the humidity of the air. John's almost flippant enjoyment has twisted into something else, but he can't quite pin down what. The idea that there could be a dead body in that pit hits John squarely in the chest.

But he's never felt more alive.

"There," Sherlock says, pointing the beam of the torch towards the slope of the pit. It illuminates the disruption of the dirt. "The boot prints are facing down, but look how they're dug into the dirt at the heel-- he was walking backward, dragging something up, you can see the dirt trail left by the body. His footprints are set too wide apart to be natural. He had buried the body here to be covered with cement."

John watches as Sherlock, lit only by the back glow of the torch, mimics the position he's described. When he stands up straight again, he's swinging the torch in wide arcs around them. John can feel the tension in the air begin to rise. Bates has already been here and back again, and now he's dragged the body off. But where?

Sherlock curses softly and steps towards John-- he reaches out and his palm makes contact with John's arm. "He's already been sloppy," Sherlock says-- the note of conviction is strong even in his hushed tone. John moves with him when Sherlock begins to stalk towards the metal and concrete skeletons of the unfinished buildings.

"So he's already a step ahead of us," John says, watching the way the light illuminates the hollows of Sherlocks face. His nose crinkles as he shoots John an annoyed glance out of the corner of his eye. John forges on nonetheless: "So we catch up."

"He's already proven he's stupid enough to go someplace familiar, within the city limits." Sherlock pauses, expression becoming narrow and focused. To John, the look Sherlock adopts is not unlike a hunting dog zeroing in on his prey. He grabs John by the shoulder and turns him to face the beam of the torch. "Look," Sherlock says, a breathy whisper right into John's ear.

All John can see is an untidy pile of cement blocks, some split and broken, others toppled side ways.

"What?" John asks, looking between Sherlock and the messy pile.

Before John can get an answer, Sherlock is already turning and heading back the way they came, taking the torch with him. John is stuck, momentarily, in the dark and he has to pick his way across the ground, following after the dancing beam of light.

"Sherlock!" John, feeling distinctly brave for some unknown reason, grabs Sherlock's arm when he catches up. "What did you see?"

"The centre pile of cement blocks was completely disrupted, but the piles on either side weren't." They've reached the car, Sherlock having forged ahead with John tugged along behind. Sherlock throws open his door and climbs in. John jogs around to the passengers side and joins him, barely getting the door closed before Sherlock has turned the ignition and swung the car around.

"What does that mean?" John asks, feeling slightly out of breath. Sherlock has that same look as before-- narrow, concentrated. A hound following a scent.

"It means Bates was there to get the body and cement blocks." Sherlock grips the wheel and John's stomach lurches as the suburban speeds up down the gravel road.

"Which means--" John pauses, taking a deep breath.

"Which means," Sherlock finishes for him, "we've got to find the nearest body of water."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see!
> 
> i would be nowhere without my ashleigh @kinklock and brit @drfurter

1.

The sun is inching upwards, just beneath the horizon, leaving the sky a soft, blue-grey as the day approaches. The warm summer air has taken a slight chill this early in the morning, and Sherlock can’t seem to get warm. This is not, perhaps, helped at all by the fact that he’s still wearing his drenched dress, soaked in lake water. A pitiful towel the police had provided has already been dampened through, though he keeps it wrapped around his shoulders nonetheless.

The adrenaline has worn off, and Sherlock feels the exhaustion creeping up on him. John is being kept from him, leaned up against the wall of a concrete pavilion a few metres from the edge of the lake, presumably used for when the weather is nice enough for the locals to swim. John is talking with another officer; he’s equally as wet and shivering and trying to dry his clothes with his own already dampened towel.

Sherlock swallows and his throat feels very thick.

A third officer finally approaches, and Sherlock rolls his head on his shoulders in undisguised exasperation. The officer smiles thinly, his greying hair still a bit mussed from sleep. Sherlock imagines that he hadn’t been expecting to be dragged out of his bed in the early hours of the morning.

“Sherlock?” The officer asks, looking down at a notepad in his hands. Sherlock nods mutely, already dreading the third retelling of the night’s events, leading up to the (perhaps a tad dramatic) diving into the lake to retrieve Mrs. Bates’ body. Just over the officer’s shoulder, Sherlock can see the corpse’s shape beneath a damp and dirty sheet, dragged up onto the sandy bank of the lake.

“Just once more,” the officer says. His name-badge says Gregson. Sherlock’s eyes cut away from the corpse. He sucks in a deep breath, hugging the towel tighter around his shoulders.

“Says here you’re with the carnival come into town,” Gregson says, reading off his notes. “And you...run the fortune teller tent?” He looks up, brows raised high enough to cause deep wrinkles in his forehead.

Sherlock clicks his teeth together. “Yes,” he answers shortly. “Trevor Bates came into my tent at the end of the night. I felt something was off, so I followed him.”

“You ‘felt’ something was off,” Gregson repeats, jotting something down. It isn’t a question, but his skepticism remains.

Before the police arrived but after the body had been dragged from the lake, Sherlock had already decided upon the version of the truth that he would tell. John’s own particular moral compass made it quite easy for Sherlock to convince him to tell their version of events, as well. As far as anyone was concerned, the night had happened as such:

Trevor Bates had entered Sherlock’s tent at the end of the night. Sherlock was a seer, after all. Of course he had known something was off. The feeling would not dissipate, so Sherlock had enlisted John’s help to follow the man. John, who was stronger, who would help him if anything had gone wrong. They had followed Bates in their car to the construction site, and absolutely did not go to his home, and watched him load up his wife from the dark and the dirt, into the back of his truck. They had then followed him to the lake.

Bates had taken one of the wooden boats tied to the dock out into the center of the lake to dump the body. There, Sherlock demures the details as best as possible.

“Okay,” Gregson says, rubbing his thumb over the arch of one eyebrow. “So you and your friend over there, good samaritans, followed someone that you--” He exhales, nostrils flaring. “--You...”

“I’m a seer,” Sherlock says, pitching his voice in a way that sounds just this side of innocent, this side of naive. “I’m a fortune teller. I have a gift.”

“Christ.”

Sherlock doesn’t have to fake the shiver that wracks his body, his fingers tightening around the edges of the dampened towel. He pulls it tighter over his shoulders, shaking the still-wet curls from his cheeks. “I told the last two officers the same thing,” Sherlock says, voice inching towards a petulant whine. “You’ve got a murderer in custody and the body of his dead wife and two witnesses to him having tossed the damn thing in the lake.”

Gregson’s eyes flash up towards him, and Sherlock adverts his own gaze, playing coy. From a distance, though his words are indistinct, Sherlock can hear John’s voice raising as well.

“Alright,” Gregson says, exhaling, clearly exhausted and ready for this to be over. Sherlock is counting on it, at least. “So you get the funny feeling, yeah? And you follow him. You and your friend, you leap into the lake?” He pauses, allowing Sherlock enough time to nod in assent. With a gruff sigh, he goes on: “Alright, and how did Mr. Bates get that broken wrist, then?”

“It’s sprained,” Sherlock corrects, wrinkling the bridge of his nose. “It was self-defense. Bates came after me once we were back on the bank. John stepped in.”

The memory of it coils something warm and molten in the middle of his chest, that slips like warm milk down into his stomach. Bates shouting abuse while Sherlock dragged the corpse back up onto the shore, panting, wet, everything chilled and clinging to his skin. The sound of the man climbing, splashing, into the water at the bank, wielding no weapon other than fists and blind determination. John intervening, moving with a certainty, with a purpose, sweeping himself and Bates into the water. The satisfying sound of a bone twisting out of place, sharp even over the noise of the water sloshing at their legs.

Sherlock breathes steadily out through his nose, lips pressed into a thin line.

“Right,” Gregson says, with a tone of finality. Sherlock feels the tension in his body leaking out, and the exhaustion settling in. Though the time can’t be close yet to six in the morning, the need to return to the midway itches at the back of his scalp. Even in the commotion of the jump, someone would be sure to notice they were missing. Perhaps running off after a murderer wasn’t his best idea when it came to subtly avoiding the concern of his elder brother.

Gregson turns away, and Sherlock can see John crossing the distance from the pavilion towards him. He moves with a single-minded determination, as if getting as near to Sherlock as possible is the only thing he can physically require of himself. That warm feeling starts anew, lapping up the inside of his chest cavity.

“You alright?” John asks the minute they’re within distance to speak. One sun-browned hand comes out from beneath the damp of his towel, grasping the crook of Sherlock’s elbow.

His skin is scorching.

“You stuck to the story?” Sherlock asks, voice soft. He puts his mouth near John’s ear, feels John’s breath against the apple of his cheek.

John laughs, low and soft, and the air slips over Sherlock’s skin. “Yes,” he says in a quiet hiss. “You madman. Really? Now of all times you’re going to push the fortune teller routine?”

The corners of Sherlock’s lips curl upwards at the corners against his will, and he hooks his arm through John’s. “Come on,” he says. “We better go while we’re still free to.”

They march together across the grass, damp with dew, towards the gravel road where the Suburban is parked. As they weave through the parked patrol cars, Sherlock’s eye is drawn towards one in particular with its rear door propped open. A young policeman is crouched there in the dirt just outside of the door, and as Sherlock picks his way forward, he can see the dog from Bates’ home sitting in the back.

He draws to a stop and John, stilled linked arm in arm with him, stops as well.

“What do you think will happen to it?” John asks, his attention having been drawn.

The officer there, crouched on the ground, looks over his shoulder. He can’t be any older than Sherlock, all pink cheeks and baby-soft skin, hair tousled in a young, hip style. “Oh, uh,” the officer says. “Probably the pound. There’s no family to take her.”

John makes a vague noise in the back of his throat, head turning, attention already diverted.  
  
Sherlock keeps himself planted on the spot. An impulse burns at the back of his throat, and he reaches out to brace his hand on the door of the patrol car, leaning down to peer inside. The mutty cattle dog peers back, mouth open, paws still dark with dried blood. She smiles with all her teeth this way, tongue lolling out of the side of her mouth.

“We’ll take her,” Sherlock says, and grins back at her.

  
2.

“You’re mad, and _brilliant,_ and absolutely mad!”

John is laughing when he says this, and Sherlock grips the steering wheel tighter in his palms. The Suburban flies down the dirt and gravel backroads, each full turn of the wheel in time with the racing of their pulses. The adrenaline of the night climbs back into their veins, and Sherlock struggles to breath around his own laughter.

“That was spectacular, the lot of it,” John says, reaching to clasp Sherlock’s bare shoulder in his palm. Their clothes are still damp and smell of lake water. In the back, the dog lays across the seats, her tail thumping against the old worn leather. “Except, you know, the part where you stole a murderer’s dog.”

“She would have been taken to the pound, that’s hardly theft,” Sherlock insists, biting the words out around a giggle. John’s palm stays warm on his shoulder for an undetermined amount of time (23 seconds) before slipping away. That same palm pushes up against John’s face, scrubbing through his hair. Sherlock watches out of his periphery, burning up with the energy between them.

“We’ll even be back in time for the jump,” John says, slumping back against his seat, the soft chuckles dying in his throat.

However, the plan to slip back onto the midway, unnoticed, in time for the move falls apart as quickly as it had been formed. Sherlock groans, head knocking back against his seat as they pull back into the car park where the skeletons of the show remain, the trailers are boxed up, the hoses coiled and tucked away. Two patrol cars are parked at the edge of the midway, just outside the tightly packed house trailers.

The entire show has been roused, nearly fifty irritated drunks and carnies pulled from their few precious hours of the sleep before the jump. Sherlock winces, idling the Suburban at the entrance to the midway.

“Yeah, well, we knew this would happen, didn’t we?” John says with a wry smile, turning his face to look at him. Sherlock rubs one hand over his face, slumping forwards onto the steering wheel.

“So much for keeping management’s fat nose out of it.” Sherlock grumbles, scowling at the scene.

“Who, Mrs. Hudson?” John asks, his voice leveling something like a scold. “Sherlock...”

Sherlock doesn’t stay to listen to the rest of it, whatever John has to say. He slips out of the Suburban, pausing only to roll down the back windows for the dog. Heads turn in his direction as he crosses the asphalt, towards the milling ride jocks and green help. Mrs. Hudson stands speaking with one of the officers and when she catches sight of him over their shoulder, her expression twists up.

“Oh, _Sherlock_!” She calls and Sherlock feels a wriggling feeling of contrition. “What have you done now?”

Waving off the assumption, Sherlock stops at her side, allowing her small hands to cup and pat his cheeks. “You’re damp!” She cries.

“I’m fine,” Sherlock assures her, craning his chin, eyes darting to make sure Mycroft isn’t milling close by. Mrs. Hudson catches him at it and pinches the inside of his elbow with a huff.

“He’s talking with an officer in his trailer,” she says quietly. “They said you were involved in some dreadful business! Something about a murder. Sherlock.” Her voice carries a thread of worry that climbs between his ribs and stays.

“All those books you read,” Mrs. Hudson whispers, grasping her palms against his forearms. She squeezes and looks around, expression wobbly with the strength of her emotions.

“I wasn’t involved,” Sherlock says, stopping just short of allowing himself to laugh. “Honestly.”

“Sherlock.”

“Trouble often finds me uninvited, Mrs. Hudson, who am I to deny it?” He grins and she scowls and he leans in to peck her sweetly on the cheek.

John joins them, appearing in uncharacteristic silence at Sherlock’s elbow.

“You better go speak with him,” Mrs. Hudson says-- a non sequitur for John, but a perfectly clear institution for himself. Sherlock can feel his expression crumbling up, and he groans in displeasure.

“Speak with who?” John asks, his voice deceptively light. Sherlock turns then to look, taking in the way in which John holds himself: arms crossed, shoulders back, chin up. He stands at Sherlock’s side with no hesitation, attention notably elsewhere.

Protective.

Sherlock reaches to touch him. He slides his fingers along the ball of John’s shoulder. “Management,” he replies.

It is unspoken that John is to stay there with Mrs. Hudson, and to keep that protective gaze on the harassed show as the officers continue picking their way through each person in search for one more eek of information on the previous night's proceedings. Sherlock slips away with the heat of John’s expression still warm on his skin.

Mycroft’s [house trailer](http://www.frederickharvesting.com/images/new%20trailer%20house%20018.jpg), along with Molly’s and Mrs. Hudson’s, is separate from bunkhouses used by the rest of the show, keeping the illusion that management is separate from the help. The trailer dwarfs the Sunnybrook in size and Sherlock has to climb a set of metal folding steps to reach the door.

Inside, Mycroft sits at the small table tucked into the wall, dressed impeccably despite the early hour. Sherlock imagines he hasn’t been sleeping at all, and he just barely stops himself from cutting his eyes. His brother’s gaze lifts, ineffective in pinning him on the stop as he steps further into the trailer. “Good of you to show up,” Mycroft says, elbows on the table, fingertips pressed together against the thin line of his mouth.

Sherlock slips into the bench seat across from Mycroft, imitating his pose.

“Of all the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into,” Mycroft begins, heaving a sigh so heavy it arches the sturdy line of his shoulders. “Of all the trouble, I did not foresee being mixed up in a _murder_.”

“No?” Sherlock says, barking a laugh. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, I suppose.”

“ _Sherlock._ ”

The sound of his brother’s voice in this instance, while not entirely unfamiliar, is still novel enough to stop Sherlock’s needling in his tracks. He sucks in a breath, tongue curling against the back of his teeth, fingers twisting together into knots.

“You have the knowledge, education and capacity to be a brilliant chemist,” Mycroft says, his voice low in a way that itches the top layer of Sherlock’s skin. “But the impulse control of an addict.”

Sherlock’s teeth ache from the effort of not spitting vitriol in his brother’s face. The last dredges of a younger brother’s hero worship keep him from doing so.

Mycroft says nothing for a long minute, but Sherlock follows his train of thought all the same. The very nature of them all-- carnies, said with a sneer, with spittle, with disgust --breeds contempt wherever they go. And, sometimes, for Sherlock most of all. Despite the good nature of his deeds, the police would have no issue sniffing out anything at all to ruin them for. Sherlock averts his gaze with an exhale, lowering his hands to the tabletop.

“And then where would you go?” Mycroft asks, softly, as if the realisation had been spoken out loud. “Back to London? To drugs? You’ve sampled that life, Sherlock, we both know it doesn’t suit you.”

The accusation hits Sherlock in the gut. His hands slide from the table and into his lap, fingers twisting into the still-damp fabric of his dress. Mycroft sighs so harshly he looks as if he might come unravelled at the seams of his expensive suit.

“Go.” The dismissal is not unkind, but the threads of exasperation are still there. “Stay out of trouble, for God’s sake.”

Though he is loathe to leave without the last word, something clutches the back of Sherlock’s throat, clogging his words and making him incapable of speech. So he stands, burning with something close to shame. The adrenaline of the night is gone now, leaving his limbs leaden and the exhaustion to harden into a headache behind his eyes.

“Sherlock.”

Sherlock pauses with his hand against the door, going still but refusing to look over his shoulder. He itches to return to John, to wallow and drown in all of his friend’s brilliants and amazings and God, Sherlock, you’re wonderful!

“The dog goes.”

Lips pursed, Sherlock leaves the trailer, slamming the door so forcefully it rattles back off the hinge.

 

3.

The dog stays.

After the jump, John has the idea of using one of the hoses to wash the dog off, which leads to her leaping in and out of the trailer, rolling the grass, getting muddy. John laughs the whole time and Sherlock feels it, like little pleasant needles, all over his skin. He laughs, too, and doesn’t even mind when the dog puts her dirty, wet paws against the hem of his dress.

The show is set up on a fairgrounds, a winding gravel road leading from the highway into town back through a thicket of trees to where the midway springs up out of the grass, thick and green and soft from regular rain. The bunkhouses and house trailers are set up behind a line of barns, out of sight of the midway. Grass slopes down to a creek by the trees and John drags out two folding lawn chairs from the back of the closet to set up just outside the front of the Sunnybrook.

So they sit, together, in the late afternoon light and the dog lays between them in the grass, mouth open and eyes squinted in a state of relaxation Sherlock wishes he could achieve.

“You can’t keep calling her Murder Dog,” John says, reaching down over the arm of the lawn chair to scritch his fingers along the fur at the back of her head.

“I don’t see why not,” Sherlock replies. He thinks it suits her.

In the morning, the dog wakes them before dawn with the sharp, loud barks of her breed. While John lets her out into the grass, Sherlock scowls from the doorway of the bedroom and says: “Fine. We’ll call her Rooster.”

John laughs so hard that Sherlock forgets to feel insecure.

The news of the fortune telling murder mystery had preceded them from one town to the next. The first night, it’s just a murmur. A larger crowd than usual is drawn in, for an opening night outside of fair season. For the first time, Sherlock is met with a line outside of his tent. The next night is worse (or, better, depending on what end of management you were standing on). Someone even brings him the clipping of a newspaper: _Fortune Teller Leads Police to Dangerous Capture_. Sherlock asks if he can keep it and John pins it on the fridge.

“People really eat this stuff up,” John observes after the third night of the show. He’s damp with sweat, the warm summer air stifling. Molly must of have run him ragged, with all the people Sherlock has drawn in.

“Of course they do, people are idiots,” Sherlock mutters, opening the door to the Sunnybrook so forcefully that it knocks against the back of one of the kitchenette bench seats. The dog leaps up from the couch, bouncing around their legs, the harsh line of her tail whacking their shins. John reaches down to stroke her head.

“Don’t pretend you don’t love this,” John scolds playfully. Sherlock drapes himself dramatically across the sofa, and John shoves his legs until he can bully his way to sit on one end. Feeling brave, Sherlock throws his legs back over John’s lap. They settle like that and Sherlock ignores the warmth climbing up the column of his throat.

Rooster climbs onto the couch, trying to work herself into the negative space of their bodies. Sherlock grumbles and John laughs and for a while, everything is good.

Everything is amazing.

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary of Relevant Terms
> 
> **Ride Jock** \- Person who runs a ride.  
>  **Gamey / Jointy** \- People who work for the games.  
>  **Barker** \- Someone who shouts to passing customers to entice them into the games  
>  **Local / Townie** \- Customers who come to the carnival.  
>  **R-Key** \- a fastener made of a springy material, commonly hardened metal wire, resembling the shape of the letter "R". used to hold together rides, hitch trailers, ect.  
>  **Possum belly** \- storage underneath a trailer / box truck  
>  **Bunk house** \- A box truck for extremely spares housing. The trailer is split down the middle, on each side are closet-sized cubicles big enough for a mattress and about 18" to move around.  
>  **House trailer** \- A camping trailer that can be hooked onto a hitch and moved from spot to spot  
>  **40 Miler** \- New help / “green” help, someone who hasn’t traveled 40 miles with the show. (Alternatively, someone who travels in a trailer but never more than 40 miles from home)  
>  **Show** \- the carnival itself.  
>  **Show owner** \- Owner of the carnival  
>  **Jump / Jump day** \- Moving day where carnival goes to new town  
>  **Lot lizard** \- Derogatory term for someone who hangs around the midway for the express purpose of fucking one of the workers.  
>  **Work call** \- the hour before the show opens where workers get everything ready for the night.  
>  **Major ride** \- large, adult ride.  
>  **Kiddie ride** \- small, children’s ride  
>  **Tear down** \- To disassemble the rides, pack up stock, and get ready for the jump  
>  **Lot Lice** \- Locals who come early, walk around and leave without spending any money  
>  **Joint / Trailer Joint** \- Concession trailer / Food truck  
>  **Shit chute** \- The place where one empties the septic tank of the house trailers.


End file.
